
flare ~&V<c 

Book J2^1_ 

Copyright N? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT. 



LIVING IDEALS 



By 

EUGENE DEL MAR 

U 

Author of 

Spiritual and Material Attraction/' 
" Divinity of Desire," etc. 



NEW YORK 

Progressive Literature Company 

P. O. BOX 228, m. s. 

1907 

Price One Dollar 



LIBRARY of C0NGHE3S 


TwoCtpies Kecoivtti 


DEC 10 


\907 


Copyriftu tntry 

CUSS A XXc. No. 

COPY B. 






Copyright, 1907 

by 

Progressive Literature Company 



All Rights Reserved 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I.- 


— An Every-Day Philosophy . . 


PAGB 
I 


II.- 


— Perception and Realization . . 


IO 


III.- 


— Ideas and Ideals . . . . . . 


■ 17 


IV- 


— The Guide to Conduct . . . 


24 


V- 


— The Manifestation of Ideals 


• 30 


VI.- 


— The Golden Rule 


• 37 


VII.- 


— Live Your Own Life .... 


48 


VIII.- 


— Mind Your Own Business . . . 


57 


IX. — Carrying Others' Burdens . . 


65 


X.- 


— Giving and Receiving Advice . . 


• 73 


XI. 


—The Consciousness of Fear . . . 


84 


XII. — Cheerfulness 


95 


XIII.- 


— The Secret of Sympathy . . . 


106 


XIV- 


— An Inclusive Toleration . . . 


. 114 


XV- 


— The Attainment of Freedom . . 


. 127 



Living Ideals 



CHAPTER I. 

AN EVERY-DAY PHILOSOPHY. 

The Soul unfolds as its subjective instrument the 
mind, and its objective instrument the body, relate 
themselves consciously to a more expanded environ- 
ment. By way of reaction, the mind expresses and 
the body manifests the Soul's degree of unfoldment. 
Impulse from without leads to awakening within. 
The incessant action and reaction of Soul, mind and 
body vitalize all of the instrumentalities of life. 

With the Soul's increasing unfoldment, it becomes 
conscious of new correspondence, the mind acquires 
new or developed faculties, and the body new and 
evolved functions. The Soul's environment changes 
as one develops, and his degree of happiness repre- 
sents the extent of his conscious adaptation to en- 
vironment. 



2 Living Ideals 

Each Soul in the infinitude of unfolding Souls is 
constantly seeking to harmonize itself consciously with 
all the other Souls of which it takes cognizance, and 
of which it is an integral part. In this search, it is 
most important that it secure a reliable guide for 
feeling, thought and act. 

A reliable guide is that offering suggestions of per- 
manent benefit, and which may be followed readily to 
one's moral advantage in solving the problems of life 
which unceasingly present themselves. The sugges- 
tions must be not only morally sound, but must be 
capable of practical application and adjustment to the 
demands of changing conditions and relations. 

What is the most practical guide? Is it a pre- 
scribed act or method which may be duplicated? Is 
it a mental or physical exercise which may be followed 
automatically? Is it a formulated affirmation or de- 
nial? Is any outward form calculated to constitute 
a reliable or infallible guide? 

As the relation between the Soul and its environ- 
ment is subject to incessant change, no particular form 
of activity will continue to relate it harmoniously to 
its environment. Any special exercise, method or 
act, has its time, place and purpose, but its useful- 
ness is outgrown when one realizes its underlying 



An Every-day Philosophy 3 

principles, the intelligent interpretation and adapta- 
tion of which supersedes imitation of form. 

A particular outward exercise or act becomes of 
value to one today because his development has 
reached a point where it serves to relate him har- 
moniously to today's environment. As soon as it has 
fulfilled this purpose completely, its essence has been 
extracted, its purpose has been subserved, and it 
has assisted to develop a new environment in rela- 
tion to which the exercise or act offers no essential 
service. 

Man is not an automaton, nor can he live automatic- 
ally. Each must think and act for himself. No one 
can live for another, and no one can duplicate an- 
other. No particular mental formulation or physical 
exercise has the same exact relation or effect upon 
different persons, although under similar conditions 
they may be related similarly. Intelligently to pre- 
scribe an exercise that will be beneficial, one must dis- 
cern the particular need or requirement of the indi- 
vidual to be affected. 

While there are changeless principles underlying 
mental formulations and physical exercises, their in- 
dividual application is dictated by Soul unfoldment, 
which is ever and always enlarging and responding 



4 Living Ideals 

to a more inclusive environment. It is evident that 
the most reliable guide in this incessant external 
change and ferment, is one which accommodates itself 
continually to the ever-expanding consciousness of 
the individual. 

As long as one looks without for aid and assist- 
ance, and until he has awakened to consciousness of 
his own inherent divinity, he will make use of auto- 
matic formulations and exercises, and rely upon dis- 
tinctively intellectual and physical agencies for guid- 
ance. One looks to results rather than to causes, and 
his guides will ever be fluctuating and unreliable, until 
he holds firmly a conception of principle. 

The only reliable guide is eternal, changeless prin- 
ciple. Principle is the guide of the individualized 
thinker, of the conscious creator of conditions, of the 
one who purposely designs the fabric of his life. The 
formulation of principle changes with his mental de- 
velopment. Its manifestation alters with his physical 
growth. He does not discard formulations or exer- 
cises, but he changes them continually to meet the 
dictates of his temporary though ever-developing re- 
quirements. He makes use of formulations and ex- 
ercises as means instead of causes, and therefore dis- 
cards their empty husks when the essence has been 
extracted. 



An Every-day Philosophy 5 

A philosophy for a single day may be founded on 
prescribed outward observances, but an Every-day 
Philosophy of Life must be based on understanding 
of principle. Automatically to follow the example 
of another is utterly impracticable. He who wisely 
directs his life along methods which are peculiarly and 
exclusively his own, is most practical. 

As one reaches deeper realizations of unity, clearer 
and simpler formulations of principle are disclosed, 
until it is evident that a few simple statements may 
form the solid foundation of life's philosophy. These 
statements are a combination of the present-day con- 
ceptions of physical science, including psychology, 
which conceptions it expresses in terms of Unity. An 
essential Oneness is seen to pervade the Universe — 
Oneness in Principle, Purpose and Object — from 
which proceed and into which return all of life's activ- 
ities. 

With an abiding realization of life's essential sim- 
plicity, one expresses and manifests simply. On the 
circumference of life is seeming diversity and com- 
plexity, apparent opposition and discord, evident con- 
test and inharmony. It is only as realization reaches 
toward the center that the region of love and peace, 
of co-operation and harmony, is approached. Nor is 



6 Living Ideals 

this the calm of inactivity. It is the poise of con- 
trolled intense activity. 

Each Soul must unfold continually toward a more 
nearly complete individual consciousness of its inher- 
ent divinity. To this end, its instrumentalities of 
mind and body must be exercised. It must receive, as- 
similate and express on all planes of consciousness, 
physical, intellectual, spiritual. The complex activi- 
ties of life must be simplified by a consciousness which 
has been ennobled by realization of principle and the 
influx of harmonies from the subconscious and super- 
conscious planes. 

Since man is a unit, it is essential to his peace and 
comfort that he live a unital life. He does this only 
as the planes of his consciousness cooperate, when 
feeling holds thought in a poise which enables it to 
direct and control action. The consciousness dictates 
to and educates the subconsciousness, and when the 
dictation and education are in terms of principle, the 
reaction is harmonious and healthful. 

One who accepts automatic exercises as his guide is 
really groping for the principles they serve to mani- 
fest. He is seeking the substance through the shadow, 
mistaking the latter for the substance itself. 

The difference between individuals is indicated by 



An Every-day Philosophy 7 

their degree of Soul unfoldment, their contrasting 
consciousness of purpose, and their comparative di- 
rectness of methods. What one does consciously 
another does unconsciously, what one strives for di- 
rectly another strives for indirectly. Slight as this 
difference may seem, one's consciousness of purpose 
and directness of method unerringly are measures of 
his wisdom. 

Consciousness is all one knows of life. That of 
which he is not conscious has neither existence nor 
meaning for him. He realizes only that which he 
knows he possesses. Without this knowledge his pos- 
sessions afford no satisfaction and confer no happi- 
ness. The greater joys of life accompany the con- 
scious shaping of one's life along direct lines of 
purposeful activity. 

While all are pressing forward to the same goal, 
what interests each individual particularly is the 
health, harmony and happiness attendant upon each 
step of his progress. Whether a particular achieve- 
ment or a given development takes a day, a year, or 
a hundred years, is of extreme importance to him. 
The amount of energy required and the degree of 
suffering involved is of vital interest to him. All 
these accompaniments are measured by his realization 



8 Living Ideals 

of principle and his consequent directness of pur- 
pose. 

A haphazard life is one of inevitable opposition, 
contest and warfare. Such a life constantly strikes 
against the adamantine wall of principle, and is filled 
with perplexity, discouragement, disappointment and 
defeat. One can live a purposeful individual life only 
as he realizes purpose in all life, and this is re- 
vealed as consciousness of principle deepens and 
broadens. 

The tree of physical life is usually pictured with 
its sap or energy moving upward from the roots 
through the trunk, and outward to the most distant 
twig and leaf. The tree of conscious spiritual life may 
be pictured reversely. As through the agency of 
physical manifestations the spiritual consciousness is 
awakened, it seeks conjunction with its source and re- 
acts toward its origin, through twig and leaf to trunk 
and root. 

In the growing understanding and realization of its 
divinity, the Soul consciously relates the circumference 
experiences of life to a point toward the center of 
Being. Gradually this consciousness filters through 
successive strata of existence, ever reaching greater 
depths of realization of the Essential Unity of Life. 



An E very-day Philosophy 9 

Starting from the leaf or twig of dawning conscious- 
ness, the Soul seeks the light of principle (unity) 
amid the comparative darkness of experience (diver- 
sity). As this light is discerned, he establishes a fo- 
cusing point of experience, a common center of union. 
The light of principle so discerned serves both to 
illumine the path he has traveled as well as all other 
paths leading up to the focusing point he has reached. 
It also intimates the direction and meaning of his 
onward journey to the next larger focusing point 
nearer the center of Being. 

As one connects focusing points of principle, and 
applies his newly acquired realizations to the illu- 
mination of the past as affording a guide to the future, 
his scope of vision enlarges and his horizon expands. 
He reaches successively to stem, branch, limb and 
trunk of the Tree of Life and toward its root or 
source. 

When in the mirror of fundamental principle the 
identity of center and circumference is revealed, one 
glorifies his manifestation of life by animating it with 
a spiritual consciousness which harmonizes his entire 
being, and places it in right relation with environ- 
ment. 



CHAPTER II. 

PERCEPTION AND REALIZATION. 

The one reliable guide is principle, truth, God. Un- 
til one finds God, comprehends principle, or realizes 
truth, he is tossed about in a sea of doubt and con- 
fusion. The Universe seems a chaos, the dominant 
note of which is chance or luck. Principle must be 
formulated and accepted intellectually before one 
may comprehend or understand it spiritually. 

Man is a unit, each plane of whose life is equally 
essential. The concurrent conscious development of 
each plane is essential to a symmetrical character. 
Man is spiritual, mental, and physical. His compre- 
hension of principle, his realization of truth, or his 
finding of God demands the constant co-operation of 
the physical, intellectual and spiritual natures, for 
normal consciousness is incomplete in the degree that 
this co-operation is lacking. 

Principles may be formulated simply, and truth may 
be stated in terms readily comprehended. A percep- 
tion of truth does not demand great intellectual power. 

10 



Perception and Realization 1 1 

It is sufficient that one knows what the words signify, 
that they are logical and consistent with the measure of 
his understanding. 

In the Science of Numbers the solution of problems 
is dependent upon one's perception of principles. It 
is so in the Science of Life. In one's daily experiences 
the problems of life are involved, and these may be 
solved only through his perception and comprehen- 
sion of the principles of life. As the solution of 
mathematical problems leads to the realization of the 
truth of the principles involved, so the solution of 
life's problems leads to the realization of the truths 
of Being. 

Experience, perception and realization are represen- 
tative respectively of the physical, intellectual and spir- 
itual planes of being. One's perception of principle is 
tested and converted into realization through the ave- 
nue of experience. It is through the test of expe- 
rience that he acquires knowledge of and faith in that 
which he believes to be true. That which is absorbed 
by the intellect, thereafter is assimilated by the under- 
standing through the activities of life. 

The physical, intellectual and spiritual are insepar- 
able, and each is equally essential. In order to as- 
similate a truth completely one must make it his own 



12 Living Ideals 

on all three planes. This demands physical manifes- 
tation, intellectual expression and spiritual realization. 

Most truths are capable of presentation in a man- 
ner acceptable to the average intellect, but intellectual 
perception alone is insufficient for practical demon- 
stration. Truth must be tested in the laboratory of 
physical activity. The physical and intellectual fac- 
ulties are the instrumentalities for the Soul's realiza- 
tion. 

One who is developed normally tests each truth on 
every plane. One whose consciousness is concen- 
trated abnormally on any plane demands abnormal 
tests on such plane. The distinctly intellectual per- 
son rejects as insufficient the presentation of a truth 
that is acceptable to one whose intellectual faculties are 
less developed or exacting. 

While experience is indispensable to realization, 
there is no exact relation or proportion between the 
two. One may realize little or much from a given 
amount of experience. While the amount varies with 
the individual, the process is the same for all. Life is 
a unit, all manifestations of which are governed by 
the same principles. The realization gained from a 
specific experience may be imperceptible, but there is 
a gain, and it finds its appropriate place in life's mosaic. 
Whatever exists is necessary and has a purpose. 



Perception and Realization 13 

At any given time the experiences, perceptions and 
realizations of each individual differ from those of 
other individuals. One's perceptions are always con- 
vertible into realization through his discernment of the 
truth involved in them. The combination of experience 
and perception produces exactly the amount of realiza- 
tion for which one is prepared. 

While growth is slow and the perception of truth 
is rapid, there are degrees of perception. There is 
an orderly process of development, both of percep- 
tion and realization, although consciousness of either 
may come in an instant. The view from the mountain 
top bursts suddenly upon one's vision, but it is only 
after he has climbed up every elevation of the moun- 
tain side. 

Life's development is by way of the spiral. Again 
and again does the Soul pass through similar experi- 
ences, but never through identical ones. At each new 
turn of the spiral one is able to extract a deeper reali- 
zation from his combination of experience and percep- 
tion. As life's spiral is eternal, his realization is 
limitless. 

Experience without perception has no immediate 
value, nor has perception without experience. But in 
conjunction they are invaluable as preliminaries of 
realization. Experience and perception are necessary 



14 Living Ideals 

factors of realization, and in the absence of either 
there is no finished product. 

A perception of the truth, "God is Love," is attained 
readily. But what this perception, or the realization 
resulting from it, means to any individual depends 
upon his stock of experiences, perceptions and realiza- 
tions. Whatever his perception, however, it will not 
be his only and final one, for it will deepen and 
broaden as he traverses life's spiral. He tests it ac- 
tively through experience and passively through silence 
and meditation. It penetrates and illumines every pre- 
vious perception and realization, and thus modifies and 
changes them. 

As a new perception is tested actively and passively, 
it is appropriated and assimilated by the whole being, 
and the Soul becomes conscious of more light and 
more life. Words and symbols lessen in importance 
as their underlying realities are reached and appro- 
priated. 

Living the life of principle is the essential of realiza- 
tion. One must act as well as think, and should act 
in rhythm with his thoughts. Passivity is important, 
but it is not all-important. Life's equilibrium requires 
that activity and passivity balance and complement 
each other. 



Perception and Realization 15 

One "lives the life" when he acts in accord with 
his higher perceptions of truth, when he exemplifies 
them in his daily life, and when he manifests his faith 
in principle. His being expands as he surrounds others 
with the atmosphere of his higher perceptions, and as 
he liberates the best he has through the activities 
of his life. This living and testing, this acting and 
manifesting, are inseparable from realization. 

One's perceptions are his ideals. He possesses them, 
but he never lives up to his ideals. His horizon is 
always at a distance. But he always thinks and acts 
in accord with his realizations, for these are so identi- 
fied with him that they possess him. He manifests 
his realizations always, for he cannot be or do other 
than what he is. 

The difference between individual methods denotes 
the extent to which each approximates his ideals or 
higher perceptions in daily life. As one is faithful to 
his higher perceptions, he lives a life of principle, and 
more and more converts perceptions into realizations. 

A life of principle does not lack in warmth of 
feeling, of sympathy or love — quite the contrary. A 
life of principle is the very embodiment of feeling, 
sympathy and love. While it is deeply emotional, the 
emotions are controlled, they are not permitted 



j o Living Ideals 

to interfere with one's exercise of justice and love. 

The Universe is governed by law, and is exact and 
invariable in all its activities. Mathematical accuracy 
does not preclude love ; on the contrary, it is love's 
highest expression; it is the guarantee of justice with- 
out which there is no expression of love. There is 
neither coldness nor lovelessness in infinite justice. 
And the more nearly just one is, the more nearly God- 
like is he. 

A normal life involves the perception and realiza- 
tion of unity. The normal Soul lives these, both in 
expression and manifestation. He has converted sense 
impressions and intellectual perceptions into spiritual 
conceptions and realizations. Impression and expres- 
sion co-operate, and the inner and outer function in 
conscious harmony. With this realization of unity, 
the Soul expresses mental peace and manifests phys- 
ical health. 

The babbling mountain brook bubbles and is noisy 
and restless, as it hurries and scurries over its rocky 
bed. The great river moves silently, powerfully and 
undisturbed, without turmoil or excitement. The 
greatly developed Soul has outgrown the perturba- 
tions of its babbling consciousness and its life is as 
that of the majestic and mighty river. 



CHAPTER III. 

IDEAS AND IDEALS. 

Recognition is an essential of conscious attainment. 
Only as one recognizes an ideal can he appropriate 
it consciously. One can have clear recognition or 
certainty of possession only of that which is definite 
or defined. All word-pictures are appeals to the in- 
telligence. They assist clear vision in so far as they 
present clear-cut ideas. 

An idea is the mental picture of a material mani- 
festation, and originates in the contemplation of ob- 
jectivity. An idea is personal and is on the plane 
of separation. An ideal is a spiritual motive which 
springs from an idea. An ideal originates in a mental 
picture and translates it to the spiritual plane of unity 
and inclusiveness. 

One's idea of the objective world is his only knowl- 
edge of it. He knows the outer world not as it is, 
but as it seems to him to be. Each person senses it 
relatively to himself. As the outer world is to each 

17 



1 8 Living Ideals 

what his individual idea of it is, each dwells ever and 
always in a world of ideas. 

Before projecting ideals, one must have ideas. The 
ideal is the spiritual essence distilled from the idea 
which has been extracted from the objective world. 
The ideal is vital mentally and physically to the ex- 
tent that it has been appropriated consciously on each 
of these planes. One whose ideas are the result of 
careful and exact observations of objective life, and 
who scrupulously constructs his ideals from definite 
ideas, will reach a spiritual consciousness expressing 
and manifesting itself normally on all planes of ex- 
istence. 

Each of the great religions of the world has rec- 
ognized the use and advantage of well defined and 
carefully constructed ideas as factors in the projec- 
tion of uplifting and constructive ideals, and each has 
portrayed a word-picture of the life of its Great 
Teacher most effectually calculated to promote this 
purpose. Each of these religions has impressed upon 
the minds of its adherents that the life so portrayed 
is that from which alone their ideals must be ex- 
tracted. 

When the basis of one's ideal is solely a mental pic- 
ture of objective life derived from a description or 



Ideas and Ideals 19 

word-picture furnished by another, instead of being 
related directly to his own observations of life, such 
ideal is manifested abnormally on the physical plane. 
The mental has not been brought into direct relation 
with the physical and the ideal has only a superficial 
vitality. The idea not having been derived direct 
from life or from manifested actuality in individual 
experience, the ideal extracted from it fails to stim- 
ulate normal activity on the physical plane. The ideal 
is as artificial as the idea from which it has sprung. 

One can manifest his own ideals only. Manifesta- 
tion is proof of ownership. Vitalized ideals cannot 
be borrowed ; they are acquired through individual ef- 
fort. Ideals lacking in vitality lead to stagnation, for 
they have no vital relation to the realm of physical 
activity or manifestation. 

Religious fanatics and monomaniacs have dwelt in 
abstract thought-pictures to the exclusion of the ac- 
tualities of objective life. They manifest their ideals 
in conduct as abnormal as their thought-processes are 
incomplete. Of necessity such erratic idealists are 
inconsistent and degrade the concrete in seeking to 
exalt the abstract. 

The ready-made or prepared idea has its place and 
purpose, exactly as "predigested" food has. Those 



20 Living Ideals 

who do not prepare ideas for themselves, use ready- 
made ones. In the infant stages of intellectual devel- 
opment, ready-made and "predigested" ideas are most 
acceptable. But that which is necessary in infancy 
may become worse than useless in manhood. When 
one is prepared to live his own life, he is unwilling 
to accept automatically the ideas of others. 

It is easy to attribute abstract qualities to abstract 
conceptions. It is not difficult to attach imaginary and 
undefined attributes to that which is imaginary and 
undefined. It requires no great effort to associate 
flowery adjectives with equally flowery abstractions, 
nor does it involve any great mental strain to attribute 
every possible perfection to the Jesus of the New 
Testament. That which the imaging faculty pictures 
to the mind requires neither original observation nor 
thought, without which it denotes the appropriation 
of an abstract mental image as the basis of an equally 
abstract spiritual conception. 

In idealizing the mission of Jesus, it has been as- 
sumed that his life and teachings were equally ideal. 
The typical Christian does not consider it possible for 
himself or for another to live or to have lived a life 
as ideal as that of Jesus. And yet one cannot know 
but that his nearest neighbor is living a life quite 



Ideas and Ideals 21 

as nearly perfect. One cannot understand that to 
which he has not yet unfolded. One must live the 
Ideal Life before he is competent to recognize it in 
others. The recognition of perfection involves the 
manifestation of perfection in him who recognizes. 
If one were able to close his mind as effectually to 
the apparent imperfections of his neighbor as he does 
to every suggestion of imperfection in the life of 
Jesus, he could recognize the Christ in the one as 
readily as in the other. 

Jesus is the idea of which the Christ is the ideal. 
Similarly, each man is a Jesus from which, or into 
which, the same Christ-ideal may and should be pro- 
jected. This would seem to be the fundamental spir- 
itual conception of the story of Jesus. In exalting 
Jesus (the idea) rather than Christ (the ideal) the 
general interpretation of the narrative has been ma- 
terial and dead rather than spiritual and living. 

One must first recognize in one man that which he 
afterwards realizes is common to all men. The Ideal 
Man can be perceived most readily in a man invested 
arbitrarily with all spiritual and ideal qualities, and 
attributes. One is then able to recognize these in 
all men. One ascends to the impersonal through the 
personal and reaches the universal through the indi- 
vidual. 



22 Living Ideals 

To the extent that one fails to recognize in others 
the same Christ (ideal) that he recognizes in Jesus 
(the idea), to that degree does he fail to idealize Jesus. 
One's ideal of Jesus is lacking to the extent that it 
fails to impel in him a similar idealization of each 
and every man. The life and teachings of Jesus would 
seem to be in vain in the degree that they fail to bring 
about a realization of the universally individual ideal 
man. 

The Ideal Life is the life of Love. One idealizes 
that which he loves. Through love alone one recog- 
nizes the Christ (ideal) in another. It is far more 
meritorious, and equally more difficult, to love one's 
neighbor than it is to love Jesus. The latter is in- 
cluded in the former, while the former may not be in- 
cluded in the latter. One who recognizes the Christ 
in the physical man with whom he comes in contact, 
cannot fail to recognize the Christ in the ideally con- 
structed idea of man. 

The Ideal Life carries the consciousness of the ideal 
both within and without the Self. It is that life 
which, through idealizing the seemingly separate, re- 
moves the illusion of separation. It is that life which, 
gathering and preparing its ideas from the living ac- 
tivities of manifested life, actualizes its ideals nor- 



Ideas and Ideals 23 

mally on all planes by living them. Cloudiness of 
vision and mistiness of expression are not only not 
essential to the Ideal Life, but they fetter and 
hinder it. 

In living the Ideal Life one has not necessarily 
reached the ultimate, for the Ideal Life admits of in- 
finite gradations or degrees of attainment. Not only 
this, but it is a subjective quality rather than an ob- 
jective condition. It involves the consciousness of the 
universal ideal in each individual idea, and the ideal 
of the Ideal Life is the Perfect Life. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 

Each individual differs from every other. No two 
are alike. Experiences are never identical, for a unique 
consciousness is an element of every individual ex- 
perience. 

It is impossible to duplicate exactly the example 
of another by repeating his actions, for the conditions 
under which they are performed necessarily differ. 
Even though such difference be inappreciable, in some 
degree it renders the same action inapplicable or inap^- 
propriate. 

The automatic duplication of another's action as a 
guide to conduct is both unsafe and unsatisfactory. 
Besides being artificial and formal, it evidences lack 
of judgment and discrimination. Having no direct 
relation to the individual's growth or development, 
it is destitute of spiritual advantage, and therefore 
of vitality. 

Another's conduct may be emulated to advantage 
only to the extent that one understands its relation to 

24 



The Guide to Conduct 25 

the circumstances and to the internal and external 
conditions impelling it. Assuming the fitness of an 
act under prescribed conditions, under changed con- 
ditions an equal fitness would demand a correspond- 
ing difference in action. 

Simply acting as others do> under apparently similar 
external conditions is a delusive and fluctuating guide. 
To follow such guide to permanent advantage is prac- 
tically impossible, for this demands a discrimination 
and judgment not associated with automatic conduct. 

The conduct of another is available as a guide, 
however, when its relation with circumstances and 
conditions both internal and external is understood. 
What another does is of little moment compared to 
why he does it. It is not one's act that is important 
fundamentally, but rather the inner precept or rule 
of conduct that prompts the act. 

Rules of conduct indicate the interpreted relation 
between the individual and the universal. They repre- 
sent one's application of methods to his interpreta- 
tions of eternal principle. 

As example and guide, that conduct which is in 
most complete accord with principle affords the great- 
est benefit. Not that such conduct always promotes 
immediate external harmony, that it appears to man- 



26 Living Ideals 

ifest friendship or affection, that it is most attractive 
of external rewards, or that it conforms to accepted 
world standards. Its immediate external effects may 
be in marked contrast to all of these. 

Conduct in accord with eternal principle is the true 
example and guide because, irrespective of immedi- 
ate results, it confers permanent and enduring advan- 
tages in the way of spiritual, mental and physical 
harmony. It promotes consciousness of harmony with 
that which is permanent and enduring. 

That conduct is most beneficial which conforms most 
nearly to principle. In so far as it manifests and re- 
veals eternal principles of right thinking and right 
acting, it is of benefit as a guide. Conduct is ad- 
mirable to the extent that it is illumined with the light 
of principle. Principle is the guide which conduct 
should reveal. 

Principle is apprehended through judgment and 
reason, and the One Principle manifests in infinite 
contrasts of appearance. While appearances are ac- 
cepted as the correspondences of equally contrasting 
principles, the external or manifest is even more likely 
to conceal principles than to reveal them. 

Appearances might serve as acceptable guides were 
principles correspondingly diverse. The adoption of 



The Guide to Conduct 27 

such a false premise leads to conflicting and changing 
conclusions. To act pursuant to the dictates of ap- 
pearance, and thus to fashion one's conduct to an 
external conformity with that of another, involves 
spiritual and moral stagnation. 

"When I am uncertain what to do I ask myself: 
'What would Jesus do?' and act accordingly." To 
duplicate what Jesus would do is both useless and 
meaningless, unless such action be the manifestation 
of a conception of the principle prompting it, and thus 
harmonizing it with one's ideals. 

It is the motive impelling an act and not the act 
itself which determines its spiritual value. Automatic 
action has no spiritual vitality. The consideration of 
others' conduct is of advantage only to the extent 
that it assists one to discover and formulate prin- 
ciple, and to demonstrate the result of living in ac- 
cord with his highest ideals. 

The real question is not, "What would Jesus do?" 
but What should one do who has the same under- 
standing and conception of eternal and changeless 
principle? Principle is the one and only eternal 
guide for each and all. In accepting principle as his 
guide, Jesus indicated clearly that all who would think 
and live rightly must do likewise. 



28 Living Ideals 

The relationship between God and man is direct. 
The one who merely copies the form of another's act 
does not live a life of principle. The great teachers 
who are regarded generally as having lived the ideal 
life are those who realized and manifested their direct 
relation to the Eternal, and refused to follow slavishly 
any form, custom, habit 01 tradition. Jesus is ac- 
cepted as the ideal because he lived his own life in ut- 
ter disregard of and unfettered by others' conduct as 
his guide. 

Assuming that Jesus lived an ideal life, it was only 
because it conformed to principle. He neither created 
any new principle, nor changed any old one. He 
neither made nor altered any truth, nor did he invent 
or initiate any truth through thinking, formulating or 
manifesting it. He neither did, nor could he, sub- 
tract from principle or truth. 

What is to be exalted is the underlying Universal 
Truth rather than the manifested act; the Christ 
Ideal rather than the man Jesus. The latter but serves 
to reveal the former. It is to the degree that one 
conforms to the Christ Ideal that he lives an ideal 
life. 

Without the spiritual understanding and realization 
of Jesus, one cannot advantageously duplicate the con- 



The Guide to Conduct 29 

duct of Jesus. Unless inspired by one's own motives 
and wisdom, such conduct is wanting in spiritual vi- 
tality. The same words and the same acts possess 
the same spiritual value only as they are the mani- 
festations of the same conscious understanding. With 
such understanding one would aot as Jesus did, not 
by way of duplication or imitation in form, but be- 
cause actuated by the same impulses and inspired by 
the same motives. 

Merely to duplicate the external life of Jesus is to 
ignore and set aside his teachings, and to lose the 
spirit in following the word. It is as one under- 
standingly manifests the principles revealed in the life 
of Jesus that one does as Jesus did, even though his 
words and acts may be in striking contrast. It is only 
with identical understanding and under identical con- 
ditions that duplication of the conduct of Jesus is 
possible. 

The one and only reliable and unfailing guide to 
conduct is found within. It is not discoverable with- 
out. This is the burden of the message of Jesus. 
The God within the Self must be consulted and lived. 
One's understanding and realization of principle must 
be followed, and this is the only Guide to Conduct. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MANIFESTATION OF IDEALS. 

Both Religion and Science now proclaim the Unity 
of God, the Infinite, the Universe, Reality. The con- 
ception of Unity now universally accepted renders 
necessary not only the assumption of universal unity 
of principle, but also of intelligence and purpose. 

There is a profound difference between principle 
and appearance or manifestation. Unity of principle 
is manifested in diversity of appearance, from the 
consideration of which all human knowledge is de- 
rived. The contrast of good and of evil is essential 
to the understanding and realization of the unital prin- 
ciple of Beneficence. So with all dualities of appear- 
ance. The conception of the Principle of Unity does 
not involve a denial of manifestation. It explains the 
latter rationally and in conformity to the requirements 
of the profoundest religious and scientific knowledge 
of the day. 

The full realization of these truths is not a pre- 
requisite of the ideal life. Both realization and the 

3° 



The Manifestation of Ideals 31 

ideal life are matters of gradual development. One 
may commence to live the ideal life even while he 
denies and disclaims such conceptions. But the grad- 
ual realization of these truths is essential to the 
ideal life. 

One who desires to live the ideal life may enter 
upon it even though he deny the truth that underlies 
it. He may reap the results of a mode of living, even 
while he repudiates another's conception of it and 
the truth it represents. He does this through mani- 
festing the requirements of that life. The ideal life 
is open to all, believer or unbeliever, credulous or 
incredulous, religious or irreligious. All paths lead to 
the same truth. 

The ideal life is the life of idealization. An ideal 
is "a spiritual motive"; it is a magnet which at- 
tracts increasingly the higher altitudes of conscious- 
ness. It uplifts, elevates, dignifies and ennobles. It 
recognizes the essential good in appearance. It real- 
izes the fundamental beneficence in phenomena. From 
the world of manifestation it extracts the essence 
which constitutes its very substance. 

The life of idealization is a life of love. It in- 
volves recognition of the inherent worth and power 
of others. It realizes the Soul that animates the 



32 Living Ideals 

body. In human ideas, it pictures the Christ ideal. 
Vibrating on every plane to the keynote of its ideals, 
it induces responses which are in harmony with its 
vibrations. Uniting itself with thought-currents corre- 
sponding to and in sympathy with its ideals, it at- 
tracts to itself the greater power and intensity of in- 
creased mass and quantity. 

It brings to the surface the beauties of life which 
otherwise might remain hidden beneath a travesty of 
appearance. One attains the ideal life through at- 
tributing ideals to others. Despite appearance, he acts 
toward others as though their lives were ideal. That 
which one persistently recognizes in another eventu- 
ally is aroused in the othei's consciousness. 

One loves the true and the beautiful, and loves his 
idealizations of truth and beauty. Every possible ideal 
is warranted, for the true and beautiful are the es- 
sence and the heart of all life. Oftentimes they are 
obscured by the discord and inharmonies of diverse 
and dual conceptions, but the magnetic attraction of 
an ideal brings the true and beautiful to light. 

An effort of the will is required at first to recog- 
nize 'in others that wnicn seems denied and contra- 
dicted by appearance. With his deeper realization 
of essential Unity and Beneficence, this effort grad- 



The Manifestation of Ideals 33 

ually lessens. When his consciousness is fully charged 
with this realization, appearance ceases to be a factor 
in the problem, and all of the infinite diversity at the 
circumference of life is seen to be equally tributary 
to the one common center. At the same time, all the 
good and "evil" appearances resolve themselves into 
the universal beneficence of Reality. 

As one continues to idealize others according to the 
dictates of his will, it gradually dawns upon him 
that these products of his will are pictures within him- 
self. He finds that others change as he changes his 
ideals of them, and that they possess the attributes 
he confers upon them. Apparently it requires but the 
magic wand of an ideal to change another at one's 
pleasure. 

As one idealizes others it comes to him also that 
whatever is true of another must be true equally of 
himself ; that he can idealize in another only that 
which he himself possesses, and that what he rec- 
ognizes in another is mirrored in his own Soul. He 
recognizes also that though the world of manifesta- 
tion offers the ideas from which his ideals are ex- 
tracted, the whole process of idealization is essen- 
tially mental and spiritual. He discovers ideals in 
others because in projecting them from himself he 
turns the searchlight of truth upon them. 



34 Living Ideals 

After one idealizes others consciously, he idealizes 
himself consciously. Through recognition of the ideal 
without, he reaches a consciousness of the ideal within. 
His images of truth and beauty awaken him to the 
knowledge of his possession of these qualities. In 
his love for others he has come to love the Self; 
a Soul-consciousness which is the very essence of all 
faith. 

After one recognizes truth and beauty in others, he 
realizes them in himself. Through first recognizing 
strength and power he is conscious of them within. 
He rises to a realization of strength through con- 
templating the idea of strength. His consciousness 
of the "outer" world is measured by his ideals. These 
are of his own creation, and under his conscious con- 
trol. His physical body is as much a part of his 
"outer" world as is the physical body of another, and 
the fruitage of Self-idealization is similar to that of 
the idealization of another. 

Each Soul has the whole universe to draw upon for 
its supplies. Whatever it desires it may visualize, and 
thus realize. In projecting the ideal, it places it within 
the sweep of his vision. That which was hidden is 
revealed, and that which was obscured by the clouds 
of duality shines forth from the clear sky of Unity. 



The Manifestation of Ideals 35 

Does one desire strength? He idealizes it in an- 
other, recognizes the Unity and the identity of the two 
Selves, and realizes his own strength. His recognition 
of strength without measures the realization of 
strength within. Love promotes the recognition of 
strength without and leads to the consciousness of 
strength within. 

One's faith in or consciousness of his own strength 
is not in the nature of a transfer from another. In 
loving another he does not deprive him of anything; 
nor in benefiting himself through love does he appro- 
priate from another. On the contrary, he realizes only 
as he confers. Through the magic wand of ideality, 
that which slumbers in the subconsciousness is awak- 
ened into conscious vitality, the unknown is trans- 
formed into the known, and the invisible takes on vis- 
ibility. In enlarging the realm of consciousness he 
creates equally for himself and others. 

One lives the ideal life through the constant projec- 
tion of ideals. He lives in a world of ideals, a world 
of love. He is enveloped in the atmosphere of the 
love he breathes, and of ideals wherein his love is vi- 
talized. His ideals are expressed on the planes of 
human activity. His spiritual insight is expressed in 
definite thought, and manifested through harmonious 



36 Living Ideals 

conduct. In his idealization of other Selves and of 
his own Self he is the embodiment of love and faith. 
The more love he gives the more faith he receives. 
He is at the center of this vital activity of exchange 
when he lives the Ideal Life. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE GOLDEN RULE. 

If one consider human relations alone, probably the 
Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them 
do unto you, represents the popular idea of the full 
measure of justice. The conception is a relative one, 
and dictates conduct in correspondence with the par- 
ticular development of the individual. Each . individ- 
ual differs from every other in his conception of what 
he would have done unto him. The Golden Rule, there- 
fore, is latitudinal, and prescribes relative and often 
contrasting and apparently contradictory conduct on 
the part of different individuals. 

Because it affirms the exact relation of cause and 
effect, the Golden Rule may be taken as an expression 
of justice. That is to say, it is the suggestion of how 
one determines the operation of the principle that in 
any event must bring to him exactly that to which 
he is entitled, and which ever returns to him what he 
should equitably receive in exchange for what he has 
given. 

37 



38 Living Ideals 

Except that what one did unto others and what was 
done unto him had the direct relation of cause and 
effect, the Golden Rule would not suggest a concep- 
tion of justice. The truth is that one always receives 
precisely that to which he is entitled, and the Golden 
Rule simply admonishes him to make himself entitled 
to what he regards as most desirable to receive through 
expressing those desires in his conduct toward others. 
One reaps as he sows ; he should, therefore, consciously 
sow as he would reap. 

Without the underlying principle of Universal Jus- 
tice the Golden Rule would have no reliable founda- 
tion, and could not be depended upon as a guide to 
life. But the law of the whole is forever the law of 
the part, and justice is always meted. What one usu- 
ally expects is the justice that affects him pleasurably. 
To reap this, however, he must sow the seed of which 
pleasure is the inevitable fruit. 

One must harmonize his conception of justice with 
the fact of justice. That one should receive exactly 
what he is entitled to, no more and no less, is the high- 
est conception of justice. Indeed, this is exactly what 
always comes to one, for what he receives is measured 
by what he gives, and the relation between the twois de- 
termined by principles that are changeless and eternal. 



The Golden Rule 39 

One usually considers himself entitled only to that 
which is pleasant, and that the unpleasant is unde- 
served. He expects results related to a superior de- 
gree of wisdom than he has evidenced in thought and 
act. He is always expecting effects related to causes 
that have not been put into action. He expects a 
predetermined and certain result, measured by his own 
limited conception of life, without understanding either 
the cause he has set in motion or its related result. 

If it be true that one reaps what he sows, it is 
equally true that sowing precedes reaping. If one 
receives what he gives, his receiving is the result of 
his giving. If this is a principle of Nature, it applies 
universally and eternally. 

To reap wheat one must sow wheat. If he is un- 
able to identify the seed, either he must trust to the 
knowledge of others, or blindly take chances of his 
sowing. If he cannot identify wheat, he may not 
know either what he is sowing or reaping. Only as 
one sows wheat shall he reap wheat. And if he sow 
only wheat, the reaping cannot be other than wheat. 

If one's reaping is of his own sowing it is not of 
others' sowing. He cannot consistently accept the for- 
mer conception, and at the same time blame others for 
his reaping. When he praises himself for his pleas- 



40 Living Ideals 

urable sensations and experiences, and blames others 
for the painful ones, his inconsistency is the outcome 
of a dualistic conception. The operation of One 
Principle equally attracts both what one interprets as 
agreeable and as disagreeable. It is his interpretation 
that determines his relation to experiences and en- 
vironments. 

One determines his own fate. All one's experiences 
and environments are the result of his own compara- 
tive ignorance or wisdom. If he reap what he sow, 
there is no sufficient reason for complaining of others, 
or of harboring ill-will or unkind feeling. Inherently 
either one is or is not an Individual, but he cannot at 
the same time consistently place himself in both cate- 
gories. 

Either JUSTICE REIGNS SUPREME HERE 
AND NOW, or there never was and never will be any 
justice. If the operation of principles that are in- 
herent, eternal, unchangeable and beneficial toward all 
does not always manifest justice, one can never know 
justice. 

But each one has a conception of justice that is 
in consonance with his individual plane of thought and 
wisdom, a conception that is always in correspond- 
ence with his understanding. What one ordinarily looks 



The Golden Rule 41 

upon as injustice is seeming inequality of result, re- 
gardless of inequality of cause. 

Apparently another has more happiness, more 
health, more money, more property, more possessions 
than I. Or another has less. Is that equality of re- 
sult. Is that justice? Yes, both. For at the time 
and under the circumstances each has exactly that to 
which he is entitled. 

Inherently, individuals are equals. Inherently, each 
is competent to set similar causes in operation, and 
to produce similar results. Inherently there is equality 
of opportunity. Not that each individual has the same 
immediate opportunities at each stage of development, 
but all individuals at the same stage of development 
have the same immediate opportunities and ultimately 
must experience all phases of growth. 

In the course of time, each of us must pass through 
every grade of life's school and thereby experience 
similar opportunities. Those who are now fellow- 
students are setting varying and dissimilar causes in 
motion, and therefore directly attracting results that 
will vary and differ from each other in proportion to 
the cause operated. 

Not only that, but one who bases his conceptions of 
justice on outward appearance and material posses- 



42 Living Ideals 

sions ignores the very essentials of life and of happi- 
ness. It is not material wealth of itself that confers 
happiness. It is the mental relation one makes be- 
tween it and the Self. Happiness is a mental con- 
dition. 

The real issue is obscured by erroneous conceptions. 
The question is not how shall one receive justice — 
for he can receive nothing else — but how shall he 
receive that justice which appeals to his consciousness 
in the way of harmonious sensations of greater and 
greater permanence. In other words, how shall one 
act so as most speedily to secure the growth that in- 
sures the greatest returns in increasing happiness? 
One may demand this in the name of Justice, for one 
acts always the best he knows how, and necessarily 
can see only from his individual point of view. 

One's higher growth is most quickly fulfilled and 
his greater happiness evolved as he follows the prin- 
ciple inculcated by the Golden Rule. To do this 
necessitates a life of consistency in thought, word and 
act, a life of integrity to principle. The result of hon- 
est and straightforward thought and act is a clearer 
insight, a deeper wisdom, a broader interpretation of 
truth, and a greater appropriation of the means of 
Soul unfoldment. These induce a wisdom which may 



The Golden Rule 43 

be continually invested so as to carry compound in- 
terest in the way of the increasing conversion of un- 
conscious harmonies into the consciousness of happi- 
ness. 

To receive justice on any prescribed plane, one's 
thoughts, words and deeds must be actuated by the 
justice that dominates that particular plane. One is 
just to the Self, and receives justice, in proportion 
as he is just to others. He may obtain dollars through 
robbing others, but he must inevitably pay full value 
for them. The good of the Self is inseparably bound 
up with the good of all. 

If one deprive another unjustly of his time, rest, 
good cheer, health, happiness, material possessions, or 
reputation, the former must inevitably suffer. There 
is no escape. He receives as he gives. For injustice 
he receives injustice, a quid pro quo — an exact equiva- 
lent — and this itself is justice. 

Not that necessarily another will return one's in- 
justice with injustice; not that one will necessarily 
receive injustice from where he has conferred it; not 
that others can interfere with the exact and inexorable 
operation of natural principles. On the contrary, it is 
often the justice of others that quickly brings one's 
injustice home to him. Injustice to others but evi- 



44 Living Ideals 

dences the injustice one has planted within himself. 
It is impossible to escape from this, for one cannot 
flee from the Self. 

"Within him Hell 
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell 
One step no more than from himself can fly, 
By change of place/' 

The more one receives and the greater his con- 
scious wisdom and knowledge, the greater are his re- 
sponsibilities and the higher the standard to which he 
is called upon to conform. Great wealth carries with 
it corresponding responsibilities, the neglect of which 
must be compensated for both mentally and physically. 
Broader spiritual conceptions involve larger opportuni- 
ties for benefiting others, and one is held to ^account 
for failure to respond to these requirements. 

The higher one ascends the greater is the possible 
fall, and if he is unprepared for responsibility and 
would seek to avoid temporary results, he should 
remain at the lower levels. Until he is prepared to 
sustain himself in the higher atmospheres, if only 
agreeable results are looked for, it is advisable and 
inexpedient to soar. 

For one who knows there is always justice, that he 
may learn through experience alone, that experience 



The Golden Rule 45 

involves expression and harmonizing with environ- 
ment, that he is here to overcome, and that overcom- 
ing demands temporary inconveniences and discom- 
forts — for such, the road to progress and greater 
happiness is in the higher atmospheres wherein are of- 
fered greater opportunities and larger responsibilities. 

Justice never demands impossibilities of any one. 
One may give only of what he has. He may con- 
sciously confer only that which he consciously pos- 
sesses. The poor have not the opportunities of the 
rich, and the poor in thought lack the responsibility 
attaching to those who are mentally and spiritually opu- 
lent. One receives as he gives, as gauged by mental 
quality rather than material amount. An important 
factor in determining this mental quality is the pro- 
portion between one's giving and his supply. Those 
who possess comparatively little have the same op- 
portunities for growth and happiness as those who 
have much. 

As the highest conduct one is capable of necessarily 
is a manifestation of his individual point of view, and 
as this is his sole guide, it is from this point of view 
alone that he may be judged rightly. As no indi- 
vidual can fully realize any viewpoint other than 
his own, no one is competent to pass judgment upon 



40 Living Ideals 

another. When one condemns another for lack of 
conformity to a standard not the other's, he is unjust 
to the other as well as to himself. 

The Universal Principle of Attraction is rooted alike 
in Justice and Love. Because the Universe is dom- 
inated by an All-inclusive Principle, all truths are 
contrasting manifestations of the One Truth. In- 
finite Justice and Infinite Love have identical mean- 
ings. 

The popular conceptions of justice and of love 
place them in contrast and opposition. Love is thought 
to be warm and justice cold, the one typifying life and 
the other death. Love is regarded as expressing emo- 
tion, justice the lack of it. Love suggests giving, 
while justice implies withholding. The contrast be- 
tween one's conceptions of love and justice depends 
primarily on whether he is looking from the universal 
or the individual viewpoint, whether he is taking the 
larger or the smaller view. 

There is an exact relation between cause and ef- 
fect. Each individual may determine what he shall 
sow. He may reap whatever he desire. When he 
sows the right seed and cares for it after sowing, 
he may produce any effect through putting in opera- 
tion the cause with which it is correlated. And any 



The Golden Rule 47 

effect must continue unless its cause is modified, 
changed or altered. 

The seeds one sows are his thoughts and acts. 
These are influenced largely by the environments that 
his prior thoughts and acts have caused to be related 
to him. As he changes his thoughts, he impels a 
change of environment which in turn induces new 
thought-combinations. Through right living one ac- 
quires a constantly increasing ability consciously to / 
fashion and determine his environment, and harmo- 
niously to adjust himself to it. 

With a developed understanding of the relation be- 
tween cause and effect one consciously produces the 
results he desires. Knowing the seed he sows, he is 
certain of the harvest. Not only does he receive 
what he deserves, and that to which he is entitled, but 
knowing this to be true he is conscious of eternal 
justice, and his perception ripens into abiding realiza- 
tion of the love and harmony of the Universe. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE. 

When one says to another, "Live your own life," 
he is met with the suggestion of "selfishness." And 
yet whose life but his own can one live? It is im- 
possible to do otherwise. In the endeavor to ab- 
sorb, or to be absorbed into the lives of others, most 
people fail to live their own lives intelligently or 
beneficially. 

No one lives his own life to the greatest advantage 
until he directs it from a viewpoint larger than the 
mere conception of physical and material demands. 
One cannot live his own life from such a limited 
point of view, for the reason that in so doing he is 
enslaved by physical and material environments. 

Until one realizes the truth of Being, and knows 
that the Self is more than his physical body, and its 
needs more than material necessities, his conscious 
living is that of an animal, and his life is manifested 
in terms of selfishness. It is only as he identifies the 
Self with the Soul that he rises to a consciousness of 
unity with his fellow-beings. 

4 8 



Live Your Own Life 49 

The realization of the truth that Soul is inseparable 
from Soul — and therefore that the interests and con- 
cerns of each are equally the interests and concerns 
of all — is what frees the awakened Individual. Each 
Soul is free from slavery to physical and material 
demands to the degree that he has unfolded to this 
consciousness. 

To absorb this truth enables one to grant freedom 
to another, and thus to free the Self. Each person is 
bound fast to that which he himself binds. He who 
enslaves another enslaves the Self. Truth liberates, 
for it permits no assumption either of essential su- 
periority or inferiority. Equality lies at the very heart 
of Truth, which is impersonal, universal and eternal. 

One lives his own life to the extent that he lives a 
life of principle; that is, a life the conscious point of 
view of which is that of the Soul, or the viewpoint 
which is fundamental and eternal. Each individual 
must progress from the position of unfoldment occu- 
pied by him, and he can see life's problems only in 
the light of his present vision. 

To the one who is dissatisfied with his spiritual out- 
look and desires to enlarge it, the broader concep- 
tions of Truth must be offered in terms related to his 
condition of development, They must be formulated 



50 Living Ideals 

to fit into the measure of his understanding. To meet 
his requirements the suggested methods must seem 
to him feasible and practicable. 

The fundamental truth is that what is best for one 
is best for all and that one does most for all who does 
most for Self, the Soul. Such an one is at the very- 
center of beneficent activity and is receptive to the 
widest range of responses. To the one who gives 
from the standpoint of the Universe does the Uni- 
verse respond, and upon him does it bestow its stores 
of wisdom and harmony. 

Would one live his own life he must see with 
clear and direct vision; he must realize the funda- 
mental Unity that underlies diversity of appearance; 
he must pierce the veil of appearance and unfold to a 
consciousness of his inherent strength and grandeur. 
When these are done, and when he expands to a deep 
consciousness of his inherent greatness, he becomes 
incapable of thought or act that is not in consonance 
with his exalted estimate of the Self. 

If one would live his own life — the life of the Soul 
— he must think and act from the one point of view of 
all who are concerned. In the largest and universal 
sense all are interested vitally in each thought and 
act of every individual. The understanding of one's 



Live Your Own Life 51 

rights involves the understanding of others' rights. 
In all its parts — spiritual, mental and physical — the 
universe is a Perfect Whole, and the tremor of each 
atom is felt throughout its confines. 

In the lesser or individual sense there are those 
who at least seem to be affected most directly by one's 
thoughts and acts. To live one's own life in reference 
to such individuals he must think and act from a 
point of view common to all. The viewpoint referred 
to necessarily is that of Principle. 

Fundamentally there is but one point of view. But 
this one point of view has two very contrasting as- 
pects. One is that of appearance or expediency which 
regards the physical or the material as basic and 
fundamental, the other that of Principle or eternal 
truth which considers the spiritual as basic and funda- 
mental. 

The more nearly one lives toward the circumfer- 
ence of things the wider the divergence between these 
two aspects. The further he penetrates toward the 
center the more nearly do the two aspects converge. 
At the center their complete identity is discerned. 

The viewpoint of appearance or expediency has di- 
rect relation to immediate, momentary and temporary 
relief or pleasure, while that of Principle or eternal 



52 Living Ideals 

truth is related directly to permanent and abiding 
happiness or harmony. Until one has penetrated to 
the heart of Being he is constantly obliged to choose 
for his guide either appearance or Principle. 

There is no inherent contradiction or inconsistency 
between appearance and Principle. While the former 
is the manifestation of the latter and is seen in com- 
plexity and diversity, the latter is the unmanifest Unit 
or Principle — One and indivisible. 

All points on the circumference converge to a com- 
mon center, and all roads from the circumference lead 
to the center. But each road differs from all others 
in its degree of directness or indirectness, and while 
all must reach the center eventually, each individual 
chooses his own road, takes his own time, and also 
determines what he shall make of each minute of his 
journey. 

The problems that confront one in his daily life 
are the opportunities presented to him for develop- 
ment, for soul unfoldment, for living his own life. If 
he would live his own life consciously, and therefore 
live a life of conscious harmony, he must meet and 
solve these problems. He can do this satisfactorily 
only as he discerns the principles each problem rep- 
resents, for principles represent Eternal Truth. 



Live Your Own Life 53 

To solve one's life problems to the best advantage 
he must think and act that which is best for others as 
well as for the Self, in the light of what is permanent 
and abiding. He must think and act for all time and 
not for the moment, and for the benefit of humanity as 
a whole as well as for the individual as a part. He 
must have that love which would permit him even 
to inflict temporary pain on others when that is neces- 
sary to their more enduring happiness, harmony and 
development. 

Doing unto another that which one would have 
done unto himself is not necessarily doing what is 
right or just. Until one realizes the truth of Be- 
ing and thinks and acts from that standpoint alone, 
all his thoughts and acts are permeated with an in- 
justice that affects the Self and others equally. 

Before one can hold another in a just estimation or 
think or act for the best interests of all, it is essen- 
tial that he estimate the Self rightly. The Golden 
Rule should constitute the cardinal rule of life, but 
if one would incorporate its essence into his life he 
must seek the wisdom that will enable him to apply it 
to the best advantage. 

With the consciousness of identity of Self and Soul, 
and the realization that fundamentally the interests of 



54 Living Ideals 

one and all are the same, doing unto others that which 
one would have done unto himself is doing that which 
is best for one and all. This involves a true estimate 
of the Self and of every other Self, and relates itself 
to the permanent happiness of others rather than to 
their temporary pleasure. 

To those who have unfolded sufficiently to an un- 
derstanding of Truth, this consciousness inures both 
to their temporary pleasure and permanent happi- 
ness. 

Live your own life! Do not try to live the life of 
others or permit them to try to live yours. All such 
attempts are doomed to complete and utter failure, for 
they involve an impossibility. To the extent that 
one lives his own life does he enable others to live 
their lives to the best advantage. 

One must live his own life consciously if he would 
assist to elevate and free others. To do this he must 
live his own life from the point of view of all lives. 
This alone enables him to unfold to the realization 
both of his inherent dignity and the equal dignity of 
each and every other Soul or Self. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. 

"Mind your own business" expresses one of the 
underlying principles of action most conducive to 
general peace and happiness. There are few who do 
not accept this conception theoretically, and equally 
few who practice it. The problem of rightly deter- 
mining what is one's own business teems with diffi- 
culties, even to the best intentioned. 

How can one mind his own business except as he 
knows what is his business? The spiritual welfare of 
the one and the many are so closely interwoven that 
to separate them mentally is often most perplexing. 
If they are fundamentally one, how can any separa- 
tion be made? Does this essential unity render the 
welfare of all others one's business? If so, has not 
every circumstance in the lives of others a bearing 
on one's life which should prompt him to offer aid 
and assistance? 

The Universe is a Unit. All of its parts are insep- 
arably connected, Life is a Unit and each manifes- 

55 



56 Living Ideals 

tation affects every other. Each community is a 
Unit, each member and organ of which is necessary 
to every other, while its general welfare is dependent 
upon that of each of its parts. Each molecule is a 
Unit, and each of its atoms is equally essential to its 
existence and welfare. 

But with the Universe, Life, the community, the 
human organism, and the molecule, each of its several 
parts has its different and distinct work to perform. 
While all are animated by the same principles, each 
must make an individual application of them to a 
different set of circumstances. 

Neither the mineral, vegetable nor animal kingdom 
may offer, to its respectively higher kingdom, advice of 
great practical value to the latter regarding its con- 
duct in life. The former has never experienced the 
higher form of existence, and therefore has no appre- 
ciation of the peculiarly distinctive elements of the 
problems presented for solution. 

Within more limited scope, there are vast contrasts 
between various races, nations and communities of 
mankind. There are many conditions of civilization, 
contrasting forms of religion, politics and laws. There 
are agricultural and industrial peoples ; rural and ur- 
ban populations ; various trades, businesses, and pro- 



Mind Your Own Business 57 

fessions; different histories, traditions, policies, and 
tendencies. 

The law of the Whole is the law of the part, and 
in particularizing one finds similar differences exist- 
ing even between members of the same family — hus- 
band and wife, parent and child, brother and sister. 
No two persons are alike, because no two have passed 
through identical experiences. There is none whose 
response in thought and action to a new suggestion is 
exactly the same as that of another. 

One knows only what he has acquired, and may im- 
part only what he possesses. He may receive only 
that for which he is prepared. No one can live the 
life of another or do another's thinking, feeling or 
acting. Each must live and answer for his own life. 

What may one receive from another ? Suggestions. 
How far may one be affected by another's sugges- 
tions ? To the extent that he is receptive and respon- 
sive to them. How are such conditions circumscribed 
or limited? By the wisdom one has absorbed and de- 
veloped through experience. How may such sug- 
gestions be imparted? By means of the silent or 
spoken word, the expressed or manifested thought. If 
one impart a suggestion, when will it inure to an- 
other's advantage? When it expresses a higher ideal 



58 Living Ideals 

than the other has realized, and being receptive to it, 
he follows its dictates. 

When one offers advice to another he indicates a 
course of action he deems most advisable in regard 
to the circumstances as they are known to him. His 
experiences cannot have been identical with those of 
the one advised, and in viewing conditions from a 
contrasting point of view necessarily one recommends 
to another a line of conduct which must be applied to 
circumstances with which he is measurably unac- 
quainted and unrelated. 

This is what makes it most difficult to advise an- 
other specifically and advantageously in regard to 
concrete personal problems of life. There is no su- 
preme specific standard to which one may conform ; 
no manifested conditions or circumstances that one 
may accept as perfect, infallible or absolute. 

When one advises another what specific course of 
action or mode of life will most conduce to the lat- 
ter's growth and happiness, he is apt to offer sugges- 
tions inapplicable to the actual facts or unfitted to the 
conditions of development of the one advised. He 
may be advising a plane to do the work of a mallet, 
a chisel to act as a saw, or a gimlet to strike the blow 
of a hammer. 



Mind Your Own Business 59 

The problems of life would be amazingly simplified 
were there a concrete and fixed Code of Nature or 
Supreme Infallible Compendium of Natural Prin- 
ciples, so authoritatively interpreted and manifested 
that one might have an exact model to which to con- 
form his life. There is, indeed, that in Nature which 
is fixed, but it is abstract rather than concrete. It is 
unformed, invisible, spiritual. 

The principles of Nature are exact, immutable and 
eternal. Their manifestations in individual activity 
represent the comparative ignorance or wisdom of 
one's development. Whatever the forms or manifesta- 
tion of Nature's principles, they are interpretable in- 
dividually only as one's development dictates. 

It is comparatively easy to conform to the require- 
ments of an established and accepted code that is 
definite and exact, and has been authoritatively and 
universally interpreted. Man has formulated such 
codes, social, religious, political and legal, all of which 
prescribe as standards certain outward forms or ob- 
servances. Those who have become proficient in these 
standards through test and experience may advise 
others advantageously in respect to them, for the fac- 
tors are exact or are capable of being made exact. 

Man-made regulations or laws lay the same ob- 



60 Living Ideals 

ligations upon each of the individuals of a class. Un- 
der certain conditions prescribed actions are demanded. 
The inherent good of the individual on his plane of 
development is not in question, for this is subordinated 
to the assumed, supposed or imagined good of the 
community as a whole. There is taken for granted an 
inherent separation of individual and community in- 
terests. What the individual may deem to be to his 
best advantage or to the advantage of the community, 
or of both, is made subservient to what has been au- 
thoritatively determined, through man s law, to be the 
best interests of the community as a whole. 

Ta each individual at any particular moment there 
is a standard. The Individual horizon is ever limited, 
and whatever completely fills his range of mental 
vision constituteSTiis standard. One may recognize the 
Universe only from his point of view, and whatever 
completely fills his measure of understanding at the 
time is his standard of perfection. 

It is this limited and fluctuating measure of ac- 
quired wisdom that serves as guide. As experiences 
are never duplicated, imparting the full details of one's 
experience to another would be of little value to the 
other. Moreover, the greater portion of one's life 
is lived subconsciously, and as the whole of his prior 



Mind Your Own Business 61 

existence enters into each experience, he is unable 
to impart the vitality of his experience to others. 

The Science of Life solves as infinite a range of 
problems as the Science of Mathematics. In the lat- 
ter the two principles of addition and subtraction, with 
their short cuts, multiplication and division, suffice to 
solve its most intricate problems. The Science of 
Life is as exact and simple in its underlying prin- 
ciples, while its problems are equally complex. 

What one may convey to another in regard to the 
Science of Life — to the extent that the latter is able 
to receive it — is the light of Principle one has ex- 
tracted from the darkness of experience. This may 
be used by another as he is able and willing to ap- 
propriate it, and in the degree that he absorbs it 
and makes his dimmer lights harmonize with its in- 
tenser vibrations. 

Each molecule is a Unit. It is one of many which 
together constitute a larger Unit. Each human or- 
ganism is a Unit. It bears the same relation to the 
race as the molecule does to it. From which point 
of view is one to think and act? If from that of the 
molecule one may seemingly benefit another molecule 
temporarily, but it will be at the expense of all, in- 
cluding the one. If from that of the human organ- 



62 Living Ideals 

ism, one may seemingly benefit himself temporarily, 
but it will be at the disadvantage of the race, of which 
he is an inseparable part. If from the point of view 
of the race, whatever essential benefit he may be to 
another individual will inure to the advantages of all, 
including himself. 

One minds his own business when, as the basis of 
thought and action, he takes into consideration that 
which is of essential benefit to all others as well as 
to himself. One's usefulness to others is dependent 
fundamentally upon the point of view he accepts and 
adopts as the basis of his thoughts and acts. When 
his thoughts and acts proceed from the point of view 
of the benefit of all, he is strictly minding his own 
business, for he has kept within his rightful sphere 
of activity. 

From the point of view of principle the test whether 
one is minding his own business or not will be : Is 
there involved in my thoughts and the advice they 
suggest to the other an advantage to the Self con- 
sidered as separate from the advantage to others? Is 
my thought or advice of such a partial or prejudiced 
order that it is colored with a personal bias? Are 
my suggestions designed to promote the undue ad- 
vantage of one person over that of another? If so, 
I am not minding my own business. 



Mind Your Own Business 63 

Truth is eternal and unchangeable, and one's un- 
derstanding of it is denoted by his interpretation of 
principle. The advice given by one whose thoughts 
and actions proceed from the plane of impartiality, neu- 
trality and justice take the form of enunciations of 
principles. It is one's realization of truth that con- 
stitutes his wisdom, denotes his condition of develop- 
ment, evidences itself in the form of harmony, and 
manifests itself in optimistic poise. 

So far as the essentials of life and individual un- 
foldment are concerned, one's usefulness to another is 
limited and restricted. One may teach another, but 
each must learn for himself. One's usefulness as a 
guide is determined by the degree of truth he is able 
to impart. The experiences of others are of value to 
one only as they are illumined by the wisdom he 
has extracted from his own experience. Each of us 
represents an individual ray emanating from a Cen- 
tral Source, and it is only as one reaches from the 
circumference to the center that he may truly relate 
himself to another through the light of principle. 

The thought and act that will inure most to the ad- 
vantage of others are equally beneficial to oneself. 
Either to offer or accept advice is not always essen- 
tial. Each must live his own life, and the most con- 



64 Living Ideals 

vincing exposition of principle is its living manifesta- 
tion. Precept indicates the theory ; example illustrates 
the practice. One's example is the most effective 
suggestion he can give to another. 

One minds his own business when he lives his own 
life and refrains from attempting to live the life of 
another; when he shoulders his own burdens, and 
neither unduly leans upon another nor permits an- 
other to lean upon him unduly. In so doing he man- 
ifests strength, love, peace and joy, and suggests 
that which is best calculated to assist others to mind 
their own business. 

Each has an individual work to perform. As a 
Whole, the work of all will be harmonious and sym- 
metrical as each individual understands the role he has 
to perform and keeps to his own part. When each 
minds his own business, there will be a consciousness 
of harmony that will manifest itself in one grand 
Symphony of Life. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CARRYING OTHERS' BURDENS. 

The principles that govern the Universe are exact, 
inexorable, and eternal. God is changeless. In motive 
and intent all of their operations are beneficent. God 
is Good. Duality of appearance is representative of 
Unity of Principle. God is One. 

It is impossible to conceive of God as other than 
Perfect and Changeless. It is impossible to regard the 
visible universe in its entirety as any less perfect. Al- 
though creation and exchange are constant and eternal, 
at each and every instant the visible universe is in 
complete harmony with itself. Each change is accom- 
panied by a compensating exchange ; while action and 
reaction are ever equal. 

The full or Infinite Consciousness of this inherent 
perfection is confined to the abstract plane of Being, 
and does not pertain to the other planes of conscious- 
ness. Eternal creation registers gradual and ever con- 
tinuing unfoldment to consciousness of the uncon- 
scious harmonies of Being. 

65 



66 Living Ideals 

Each manifestation of life possesses a consciousness 
of some of its inherent perfection, and the evolutionary 
development of life (all "development" being confined 
to the planes of existence) records a constant unfold- 
ment of consciousness. 

Consciousness develops with the broadening of life's 
environment and the deepening of invironment's re- 
sponses. With the enlargement of consciousness, life 
unfolds to a constantly increasing knowledge of its in- 
herent perfection and harmony. The eternal perfec- 
tion of the Infinite is being approached continually by 
the finite ; and of all forms of life man is most con- 
scious of his innate and inherent perfection. 

Development of consciousness is a matter of individ- 
ual soul unfoldment. All change or growth fun- 
damentally is soul unfoldment, and every change in 
outward manifestation is a result in exact relation 
and correspondence with its fundamental cause. As 
external and internal development are ever in corre- 
spondence, and as one without the other is impossible, 
the conclusion is inevitable that manifestation — includ- 
ing environment, activity and experience — is essential 
to soul unfoldment. 

Each Soul follows its self-chosen path of unfold- 
ment, however closely it may approximate that of an- 



Carrying Others' Burdens 67 

other. Each Soul must learn for itself. One Soul may 
suggest to another, and the other may accept and adopt 
the suggestion. But the suggestion is unimportant un- 
til it has been accepted. The one is responsible only 
for making the suggestion, and the other responsible 
only for accepting it. 

While each Soul is responsible for its suggestions to 
another, it is not responsible for the results of the 
other's appropriation of them. One's motive deter- 
mines the spiritual and mental returns he shall receive, 
and one's acts measure his physical and material com- 
pensations. Pain and disappointment are not infre- 
quently the accompaniments of spiritual unfoldment. 

Each individual Soul is inseparable from Universal 
Spirit and, as Life is a unit, all of its parts have iden- 
tical attributes and interests. Whatever assists one 
Soul to a greater unfoldment assists all. Since the 
object of life is soul-unfoldment, it is most advantage- 
ous to each Soul to think and act for the benefit of all. 

As each Soul must develop individually, and is help- 
ing others as it helps the Self, that conduct in thought 
and action is most beneficial which affords to others 
positively, the greatest opportunities for, and nega- 
tively, the fewest obstacles to, soul-unfoldment. 

One ceases to place obstacles in the way of others, 



68 Living Ideals 

and therefore of the Self, when he comes to a realiza- 
tion of his essential unity with God, or oneness with 
the Universe. He then realizes his own inherent per- 
fection as well as that of each and every other Soul. 
He then lives his own life to the best advantage of the 
Self and others. 

To the degree that one is dominated by the concep- 
tion of duality, he places obstacles in the way of others. 
He acts from the point of view of opposition and a 
sense of discord and inharmony. His recognition of 
discord prompts activities that have their basis in dis- 
cord, and this results in intensified manifestations of 
discord. Sooner or later, however, this leads to a 
greater recognition of inherent harmony and to his 
realization of unity with that with which formerly he 
was in apparent opposition. 

How can one Soul assist others? By suggestions 
of truth and by promoting opportunities and offering 
inducements for their manifestation by others. What- 
ever suggests to another a greater conception of truth 
than he realizes consciously, must be of advantage to 
him. Similarly, whatever facilitates another's mani- 
festation of these greater conceptions must be benefi- 
cial. And negatively, that which brings to another a 
realization of the ugliness of his present manifestation, 
and renders it less attractive, may be of service to him. 



Carrying Others' Burdens 69 

In other words, whatever impels toward the com- 
parative light of greater truths is to the Soul's advan- 
tage, and whatever impels toward the comparative 
gloom of lesser truths is to its detriment. In which- 
ever direction one assists another he assists the Self. 

In carrying these principles into operation neces- 
sarily one follows the guide of principle rather than 
appearance. He "sacrifices" the lesser to the greater 
gain. He subordinates the temporary to the perma- 
nent. He is even willing to inflict upon another such 
temporary discomfort as he may deem necessary pre- 
liminaries to the latter's more permanent comfort. 

If one live to the best advantage, he controls and 
directs his emotions, and they become ready servants 
of the understanding. That one's emotions dominate 
him, and are not controlled, denote that he is following 
appearance rather than principle. When principle 
alone is dominant, the emotions possess intelligent con- 
centration and intensity. 

Principles are not difficult of application on the dis- 
tinctively mental plane. Affirmative and constructive 
thoughts — thoughts of love, peace, strength and har- 
mony — are elevating and beneficial to others, while 
negative and destructive thoughts — thoughts of hate, 
strife, weakness and discord — are depressing and det- 



7o Living Ideals 

rimental. As one's constructive thoughts predominate, 
he affects others helpfully and lightens their burdens. 

The first attempt to apply principles on the plane 
of manifestation is not easy, for the reason that one is 
liable to be misled by appearance and by uncontrolled 
emotions. Is it of advantage to another that he be re- 
lieved of incentives to activity, or that he be excused 
from solving the problems of life that confront him? 
Is it beneficial that the load he carries be transferred 
to the shoulders of another ? When is interference in 
another's life justifiable? 

All physical and material burdens are lifted as the 
consciousness of burden is dispelled. Whatever the 
load carried, it is not a burden as long as it falls within 
one's consciousness of strength. Ones conduct toward 
another should be designed primarily to promote in 
him such a consciousness of strength as will prevent or 
dispel the consciousness of burden. 

If one cultivate and tolerate a consciousness of in- 
ability to carry more than a hundred pounds, the sense 
of burden commences when that limit is exceeded. But 
if his consciousness be extended so that it include the 
excess carried by him — whatever this may be — the 
sense of burden is eliminated. To the extent that each 
lives his own life, others are enabled to live theirs to 
the best advantage. 



Carrying Others' Burdens 71 

If obstacles and difficulties were inflictions from 
without, love and justice would dictate that one remove 
them physically whenever opportunity permitted. But 
they are the very reverse of this. They are opportu- 
nities and tests designed to develop one's strength and 
promote one's happiness. And yet there are occasions 
when it is advisable to relieve others directly of the 
physical burdens they are carrying. 

There are mental and physical conditions in which 
one is unable to realize practically his inherent strength. 
Self imposed limitations may have become so crystal- 
lized that he is quite unable, at the time, to awaken 
his consciousness to a greater realization of his inher- 
ent powers. Under such conditions the burdens of 
others should be gently and lovingly lifted from their 
shoulders, in order that they have more favorable op- 
portunities for Self realization. 

Indiscriminate charity and promiscuous alms giving 
evidence lack of love or esteem for one's fellow beings. 
They may serve to still the conscience temporarily, but 
they denote one's comparative indifference to the en- 
during or soul welfare of others. They tend to inten- 
sify in others the consciousness of weakness and 
burden. They make idlers, paupers and outcasts, and 
they degrade both giver and receiver. 



72 Living Ideals 

The question of burden or no burden is entirely a 
matter of proportion and relation. When one's 
strength is more than equal to the demands made upon 
it, there is no recognition of burden, and this is the 
condition that always prevails when one acquires the 
sense of right relation and adjusts demands from the 
standpoint of principle. As this consciousness of in- 
herent strength is unfolded, Life's pathway is pleasant 
and is easily trod, and above the sense of toil and bur- 
den the Soul rises triumphant. 



\ 



CHAPTER X. 

GIVING AND RECEIVING ADVICE. 

Theory is simple, while practice is difficult. Advice 
is the easiest thing to offer or give, and the most diffi- 
cult to receive and follow. Advice is for another, prac- 
tice is for oneself. Advice suggests an arbitrary un- 
deviating course of action, from which the unexpected 
factor is omitted. Practice meets with unforeseen 
emergencies, and the unexpected is its constant com- 
panion. 

That one's advice is requested, of itself is not suffi- 
cient to induce a response. Necessarily one speaks and 
acts from his own point of view, and because another 
requests something of one is not sufficient reason for 
granting it. One does not always do what another 
demands. He must have an impelling motive, or there 
is no basis or foundation for action. One's motives 
for giving advice are the same, whether it is or is not 
requested. 

Advice is volunteered from motives of self-lauda- 
tion, self-interest or self-preservation. One is flattered 

73 



74 Living Ideals 

by an appeal to his assumed superior wisdom, or he 
sees where his desires may be fulfilled or his interests 
subserved through giving advice. The instinct of self- 
preservation prompts him to advise what he considers 
he would do were he in the place of the one advised. 
The point of view from which his advice emanates is 
his estimate of the Self, and its assumed relation to 
the One Self, the Universe. 

Why does one seek advice? Each of us feels that, 
whatever he may do, there is a possibility that after- 
ward he may come to regard it as a mistake, and the 
average individual is unwilling to admit a mistake, ex- 
cept the mistake of another. Most people freely ac- 
knowledge these. So one flatters another by asking 
advice, and flatters himself by holding the other re- 
sponsible for any unpleasant results of his own actions. 

The unenlightened believes that he reaps what others 
have sown, except when his reaping is agreeable. He 
insists that he has sown his good fortune, but that 
others have sown all else. Since he usually expects 
unpleasant results, their probable future appearance 
impels him to seek another's advice. He then blames 
the other for sowing the crop he reaps. 

Theoretically many accept the idea that "as one 
sows he reaps," but few believe its logical sequence 



Giving and Receiving Advice 75 

that "what one reaps he has sown." No; if anything 
unpleasant is reaped, it is "the devil," or the "principle 
of evil," or "misfortune," or "circumstance," or "some 
one else" who is to blame. Anything rather than the 
Self. If advice is tendered and acted upon, the giver 
is blamed for unpleasant results, while the one advised 
congratulates himself upon his own superior wisdom in 
regard to all pleasant effects. 

One may have determined already upon his course 
of action, but without entire satisfaction that his con- 
clusion is logically deducible from his premise. He 
feels the desirability of insuring himself against un- 
divided responsibility, and so asks advice. He con- 
tinues asking advice until he finds another who advises 
him to do exactly what he has already decided to do. 
Often he conceals, or colors or distorts the fact — quite 
unintentionally or unconsciously perhaps — in such 
fashion as to compel the advice he desires to receive. 
In this way, he gets others to participate in the liability 
he assumes. The entire process of giving and receiv- 
ing advice is most subtle and its impulses are deeply 
hidden. 

Ordinarily, when one seeks another's advice, he does 
it not so much with a view of following it as such, but 
of following it to the extent that it agrees with or con- 



76 Living Ideals 

firms his own views. He wants to get what he 
considers the other's support in favor of a course of 
action with the advisability of which he is not quite 
satisfied. 

It it seldom, indeed, that other than professional ad- 
vice is sought with the view of following it because 
of its intrinsic worth, and regardless of one's pre-de- 
termination. One values advice as it enables him to 
carry out his own views to a greater advantage than 
he would otherwise be able to secure. This is, in fact, 
the usual reason for seeking even professional advice. 

In going to a lawyer, one tells him what he wants 
to do, and requests his advice as to ways and means. 
If the lawyer understands his business, he will meet 
the requirements to the extent that the law permits. If 
his client wishes to form a Beef Trust, the lawyer does 
not draw up a Charter for an Altruistic Universal 
Brotherhood Colony. If the client desires to spend 
his money and energy in "getting even" with another, 
the lawyer may be depended upon to assist him. He 
knows what is wanted and he advises accordingly. 

One goes to a physician not to be healed, but to be 
cured. He asks to be relieved of pain or suffering. He 
does not ask to have the fundamental cause removed. 
He requests that the result be eliminated. The physi- 



Giving and Receiving Advice 77 

cian devotes himself to doing what is required. If con- 
scientious and painstaking, he will relieve the pain, if 
it necessitates a hundred visits and operations galore. 
The client is often more responsible for undesirable 
results than the lawyer, and the patient than the doctor. 
These professionals are advisers, and they give what is 
asked. 

There are instances however, where advice is sought 
and followed by reason of the desire to understand 
and practice the principles involved, and because of 
the confidence and high estimation of its source. Be- 
fore this occurs, it is necessary that the seeker be con- 
vinced of his comparative ignorance of the problem 
concerning which the advice is sought ; so much so, in 
fact, that he is ready to acknowledge the superior wis- 
dom of his adviser, and is willing to follow the latter's 
instructions. 

Even assuming this last mentioned condition to ex- 
ist, and the advice given to be expressive of a higher 
wisdom than is consciously possessed by the one ad- 
vised, the latter may not be able advantageously to 
follow it. The vitality of action depends upon the 
underlying motive and intent. When one acts upon 
another's advice, he may not display the other's meas- 
ure of wisdom or vitality. Lacking the other's motive, 



78 Living Ideals 

his action will be formal or automatic, and correspond- 
ingly ineffective. 

If one's advice is not accepted he should not feel 
injured. That is not his affair. Another is no more 
obligated to follow one's advice than he is to give it. 
One has given what he had. To profit by that for 
which he asked, the other must take what is given. 
The desire to learn in one's own way is a privilege that 
must be accorded another. It is his prerogative to de- 
cline assistance, and one that it were well to recognize. 

If one has honestly given advice to another, he 
should not permit the subsequent "y° u told me to do 
it" to disturb him. Children, both physical and spirit- 
ual, blame others for unpleasant happenings. They 
must creep before they walk, and must depend upon 
others before they stand alone. There are few mental, 
moral or spiritual adults, and few are willing to shoul- 
der their own responsibilities and stand alone. 

One is often impelled to offer advice to his associates 
in social, business or professional relations. Matters 
are brought to his attention which suggest methods of 
improvement. He is prompted to advise that what he 
regards as lacking be supplied. If the problem comes 
within his legitimate sphere of activity, he is clearly 
minding his own business in pointing out the condi- 



Giving and Receiving Advice 79 

tions. To decline to do so, in fact, is not to mind his 
business. 

Advice involves the consideration of two conditions, 
one that exists and one that though non-existent is 
deemed more desirable, and advice is designed to show- 
how the former may be converted into the latter. Until 
one's advice is asked for, it is always safe to confine 
himself to pointing out these two contrasting condi- 
tions. If his advice is desired, it will then be asked 
for. If given, he should not feel offended if it is re- 
jected. 

In seeking advice, one usually neglects or fails to 
mention one or more important facts, the knowledge 
of which might seriously affect the judgment and con- 
clusion. This is usually done unintentionally, although 
at times there is an intentional concealment or perver- 
sion, so one's conclusions are based upon statements 
that are incomplete and therefore not indicative of the 
real problem to be solved. Under such conditions, his 
solution is not likely to be the best one. 

Professional men are habitually deceived by their 
clients or patients. The experienced physician becomes 
a good deductive reasoner. While he notes results he 
reaches his conclusions as much from what is con- 
cealed as from what is divulged. A lawyer must guard 



80 Living Ideals 

himself constantly against his client's lack of memory 
regarding matters detrimental to his own side of the 
case. 

As a rule, neither the physician's advice nor the 
patient's statements become public property, or a mat- 
ter of record. There are weighty reasons against 
making one. But much of a lawyer's work is a matter 
of public record, and upon this record depends his 
professional reputation and recognition. He makes it 
his business to see that his client does not unintention- 
ally forget any essential fact. 

One should not offer advice when it is not asked. 
Or if his advice is invited and then resented, he should 
not again offer it. There are those who are intolerant 
of the idea that the wisdom of others is superior to 
their own, even though they may be floundering wildly 
in the results of their own ignorance. As they are not 
prepared to accept advice, they should be permitted to 
learn in their own way. When it is manifestly useless 
to give advice, carefully refrain from offering it. Keep 
it for those who desire it, and who are able to derive 
benefit from it. 

Each should endeavor to live his own life and per- 
mit others to live theirs. Do not mourn or bewail 
others' experiences. It is impossible to bear the bur- 



Giving and Receiving Advice 81 

dens of others, although one may assist to strengthen 
another so that he will not consider as burdensome 
what he is obliged to carry. He may do this through 
suggesting inherent strength to the other, and thereby 
enabling him to reach a greater consciousness of his 
own power. The weight of a burden depends alto- 
gether upon the ratio between strength and burden. 
Any burden may be carried without discomfort if one 
possess the requisite conscious strength. 

To lift another's burden, at best can give but tempo- 
rary relief. It may even temporarily retard the growth 
of self-reliance and self-control, for the one assisted 
may become weakened through lack of exercise. More- 
over, when the burden is resumed, as it must be at 
some future time, it will seem the heavier. If one 
enable another to increase his strength sufficiently, the 
burden will cease to be regarded as such, and he may 
acquire the ability to bear even greater burdens with- 
out difficulty. 

When one arrives at the consciousness of his inher- 
ent Individuality and knows that he is responsible for 
whatever befalls him, he is prepared to value advice 
rightly. Before it is possible to act upon it, however, 
it must receive his deepest consideration, for it is as 
nothing to him until he has accepted and made it his 



82 Living Ideals 

own. If he adopt it without question, he does this at 
his own risk, and even here he alone is responsible 
for the results. 

The truly individualized Soul does not accept any 
advice, as such. He listens to all suggestions, weighs 
them as best he knows, and acts as he deems most 
advisable. That, in fact, is what each of us must 
necessarily do at all times, but the Individual does it 
consciously, attaching no blame to another, whatever 
the results. He knows that what is reaped is the result 
of what was sown, and he sees no necessity for a 
scapegoat. He stands up in his own might, and has 
no inclination either to shirk or to ignore. 

To live life nobly, one must live it fearlessly, man- 
ifesting courage, principle and love. His example will 
then be the best possible advice. One's wisdom will 
radiate from him, and his mere presence will quicken 
in others a consciousness of the truths he realizes. 

One may lead another to the understanding of prin- 
ciples, but the other must make his own application. 
One should not advise unless his advice is asked. If 
he deem the occasion an appropriate one, he may care- 
fully ascertain the facts and give his advice honestly, 
fearlessly, impartially. He need not concern himself 
about results. That is a realm over which he has no 
direct control. 



Giving and Receiving Advice 83 

When one rejoices in his own Individuality, he asks 
no favors. He recognizes his Unity with all else, and 
knows that it is his estimate of the Self that determines 
his position. One is strong or weak as he rates himself. 
When he knows himself to be the embodiment of 
strength, love, and peace, he manifests these conditions. 

One thus individualized lives from the point of view 
that his interests are inseparable from those of all 
others. Character building is the object of existence, 
and only by meeting ond overcoming obstacles are 
faculties exercised and strengthened. Character re- 
sults from thought and action, and each individual 
must think and act for himself. 

To assist others as much as possible and harm them 
the least should be one's course in conduct. What he 
gives must inevitably return to him. If he would act 
for the greatest good and benefit to others, he must 
wisely refrain from giving unsought or unnecessary 
advice. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF FEAR. 

Fear is the child of ignorance, the product of dis- 
trust. It denotes ignorance of right proportions. It 
reflects a telescopic conception of one's environment, 
and a miscroscopic estimate of one's Self. 

Fear is the result of a conception of dual or diverse 
principles in Nature. It betokens ignorance of the 
inherent Unity of all things. Fear increases as one's 
conception of inherent diversity expands or as his un- 
derstanding of inherent Unity contracts. 

The conception of separation, opposition or antag- 
onism generates fear. Because one finds his physical 
environment extensive and himself comparatively lim- 
ited, he regards the Self as a slave to circumstances 
and as under the dominion of outer forces. As he re- 
alizes the Self and its environment to be One, he also 
recognizes the Oneness of the Universe, and to the 
extent this is realized is he free from the constraint of 
environment. As he comprehends the essential unity 
of the Self and environment, he ceases to fear. 

8 4 



The Consciousness of Fear 85 

When one knows his essential relation and Oneness 
with all else, the sense of separation and opposition 
vanishes. A member or organ of the physical body 
has no fear of a fellow-member or organ. One fears 
not that which he knows to be in constant correspond- 
ence with him, beneficially connected with him, and 
essential to his existence. He has no fear of that 
which he must forever be in connection with and de- 
pendent upon. Under such conditions one's only 
"fear" is that he may be unable to show enough friend- 
ship or afford sufficient assistance to his co-operative 
comrade. 

Fear of one another will cease when all are con- 
sciously working for the same cause, with the same 
purpose, and for the same end. Under such circum- 
stances there is no occasion for fear. However many 
different spheres of activity there may be, however 
diverse the occupations, or the immediate purposes, 
objects or results, they all necessarily complement, 
supplement and assist each other. The good of one is 
the good of all. 

The conception of inherent Unity leaves no room 
in the mind for jealousy, hatred, opposition or antag- 
onism. It removes all vesiges of fear, and prohibits 
its recurrence. It enables each to secure the co-oper- 



86 Living Ideals 

ation and share the strength of all others. It inten- 
sifies love, harmony, and mutuality. It confers power, 
strength, vitality and life. As health dissipates dis- 
ease, and light dispels darkness, so is weakness elimin- 
ated by strength, and fear replaced by courage and 
faith. 

Each individual interprets the universe as being di- 
vided into and composed of the Self and all else. The 
conscious relation one makes between the two — the 
within and the without or the Self and its environment 
— determines the extent of his fears. Is one the arbiter 
of his own destiny, or is he the slave of environment? 
Is it physical or material manifestation or size that 
tells? Or is it character or the Soul that determines 
results? Consciousness gauges and measures one's re- 
lation to all else. Soon or late, consciousness gives 
each one the mastery. 

Within the Soul itself is the capacity to wield all 
the powers and privileges inherent in Universal Spirit. 
Through the body's agency the Soul may manifest its 
consciousness of equality and mutuality with all else. 
The position of mastery means direction of Self, a con- 
sciousness of independence that forbids any relation 
to or co-operation with slavery. It means the con- 
sciousness of power, of equality before the Laws of 



The Consciousness of Fear 87 

Nature, of subservience to none, and of lordship over 
none. 

Any form of inequality is of mutual disadvantage. 
Any form of slavery involves bondage both of lord and 
of serf. Any form of fear demoralizes those who fear 
as well as those who are feared, while all forms of true 
freedom and courage strengthen the general cause of 
courageous action. 

The Soul cannot perish or be injured. It is the in- 
dividualized Self, and the body is its physical mani- 
festation. While forms are forever changing, Life is 
eternally conserved. The principles of Nature are in- 
herently beneficent, and always operate to one's ad- 
vantage. Whatever happens must be for his good. 
One who trusts the beneficence of Nature, knows that 
no harm can come to him and that there is no occasion 
for fear. 

Nothing is harmful to one, and nothing is to his dis- 
advantage, except as he so considers it. When he sees 
no harm to himself in any condition, there is none. 
When he fully understands that every condition is to 
his advantage, he no longer fears anything. 

As one understands his essential unity with all else, 
his mastery of Self, his freedom from the thraldom 
of environment, and his view-point as that of the Soul, 



88 Living Ideals 

he becomes possessed of love, of strength, of courage, 
tand of abounding vitality. The weakness of distrust, 
suspicion, hate and fear take flight as these permeate 
his being. 

A necessary relation exists between the different 
parts of an organism. Each part is related, though in- 
directly perhaps, to every other part, and directly all 
are related to the government of the whole. The 
social body resembles the human body in this respect. 
Each member owes allegiance to the general govern- 
ment, and the prosperity of the government and of the 
people are ever in correspondence. 

Symptoms of discord or inharmony in a body mani- 
fest themselves outwardly in some individual member 
or organ — in the weakest link of the chain. The sug- 
gestion is usually that of a merely local disorder. 
Some special function has failed to answer its purpose 
or to respond to the demands made upon it. A correct 
diagnosis involves the discernment of whether it is of 
a local or general nature, for upon this depends the 
method of treatment. 

Physical disorder is usually of a general character. 
Where it is local, the rest of the system hastens to the 
relief of the disabled member, and the whole organism 
is devoted to its restoration. Under such conditions 



The Consciousness of Fear 89 

local remedies may be efficacious, and usually harmony 
is restored very quickly. When the symptoms denote 
a general "run down" condition, local remedies only 
repress local symptoms. It is necessary that the sys- 
tem be reinforced with new vitality for general use, 
and particularly in the disturbed parts. 

The field of one's fears is universal. He fears death, 
disease and poverty; he fears accident, and loss of 
things in particular and everything in general ; he fears 
the opinions of others, and he fears his own opinions ; 
he fears to be natural, to express himself, or to be in- 
dividual; he fears to be alone, and fears to be with 
others; he fears to be conventional and he fears es- 
pecially to be unconventional; he fears anything and 
everything that he deems stronger than himself; and 
he fears to fear. 

Some teachers of spiritual philosophies spend much 
time in the elimination of fear, and the cultivation of 
courage. For this purpose formulas are devised, af- 
firmations and negations are offered for practice, and 
students are advised what to do or not to do under 
varying conditions. 

Local remedies have their place and purpose. Af- 
firmations and negations may be beneficial. If one is 
bleeding, the wound should be closed; if bruised, the 



go Living Ideals 

skin should be attended to properly. Whatever in- 
harmony is inflicted from without, primarily requires 
treatment from without. But whatever comes from 
within, equally demands first and maximum attention 
at the source of the trouble. 

A local bruise may be inflamed by local treatment 
until the whole system is involved. So it is with fear, 
which may even be stimulated by undesirable affirma- 
tions and negations. 

Fear is the product of ignorant thought, a manifes- 
tation of conditions of false consciousness, the expres- 
sion of a false conception of relationship. Its incep- 
tion is within, and it should be treated at its source. 
It is the result of a misconception of principles, and it 
will seek outward manifestation so long as it is re- 
tained in the consciousness. If repressed locally it will 
find another avenue of expression, and such expression 
is always discordant and painful. 

As far as affirmations, negations and formulas edu- 
cate the individual and develop understanding of prin- 
ciples, will they assist to eliminate fear and establish 
faith, for outer symptoms appear only as they are gen- 
erated from within. Cause removed, its result ceases 
to manifest. As long as the conception of fear is per- 
mitted to exist in the consciousness, it will manifest 
itself in the body in pain and suffering. 



The Consciousness of Fear 91 

Fear and disease are names for corresponding men- 
tal conceptions and physical manifestations of false 
consciousness. It is difficult if not impossible to effect 
a cure through local treatment of the symptoms of a 
general disease. Cures are not effected in this way as 
a result of the local treatment itself, but because of the 
opportunity for recovery afforded the vital organs. 

Fear and disease are inevitable as long as one be- 
lieves in a God and a Devil, or in Good and Evil, as 
opposing and antagonistic principles of more or less 
equal power. The law of the Whole is the law of the 
part, and one's conception of the Universe is insepar- 
ably related to his conception of the Self. While he 
believes in a divided and self-opposing Universe, he 
must believe in a divided and self-opposing Self. 

If one persist in believing in inherent evil as well 
as Inherent Good, he will not fail to evidence that be- 
lief in a body which manifests his belief. As long as 
he conceives the Principle of the Universe to be dual or 
diverse, so long will his body remain a prey to the 
thought of duality or diversity that it necessarily repre- 
sents. 

The conception of God" or the Universe lies at the 
root of all conceptions, and determines the position 
one assigns to the Self, and the relation he bears to 



g2 Living Ideals 

all else. And by the "Universe" is meant all that is, 
visible and invisible, material and immaterial, physical 
and spiritual. 

Fear results from the conception of a devil or a 
principle of evil, the formulated dissemination of 
which is well calculated to extend its consciousness 
Through fear alone is one enslaved. Through the con- 
ception of a principle of evil as a governing factor in 
the Universe, have religious institutions always de- 
rived or retained their power. The conception of in- 
herent and universal justice and beneficence will ban- 
ish the other, for it would not permit of inequality or 
slavery. It inculcates a realization of freedom, of 
unity, and of love. 

The realization of Unity attacks the stronghold of 
theology. It seeks to eliminate the conception of a 
devil and of a principle of evil. So long however has 
the human mind been atrophied along these lines and 
been theologically moulded and biased, that to dis- 
pense with one's belief in a principle of evil, is his last 
resort before coming into consciousness of Unity and 
health. Many have ceased to personify it as a devil, 
but few indeed have eliminated it fully from conscious- 
ness. 

If there is no devil and no principle of evil, there is 



The Consciousness of Fear 93 

only Good and its Principle. If there is no inherent 
malevolence, there is only Beneficence. All one's ex- 
perience, all his environment, all that comes to and 
goes from him therefore are inherently good. Nothing 
may harm him, nothing may be to his disadvantage. 
If there is no devil and no principle of evil, there is 
no duality and no conflict of principles. If there is no 
duality and therefore no diversity in Principle, there 
is only Unity, Oneness, Completeness, Mutuality, Uni- 
versal Love. 

As this latter conception is fostered, encouraged, de- 
veloped and lived, the Soul comes into an expanded 
consciousness of the unconscious harmonies of Uni- 
versal Spirit. Through such consciousness the whole 
body is transformed, and expresses love, strength, 
courage and faith. Hate, weakness and fear are dis- 
pelled from consciousness, for they have nothing upon 
which to subsist. 

It matters not how this understanding is reached. 
Each individual must pursue the course best suited to 
his condition and environment. Some will reach it 
first through the reason or the intellect, others through 
intuition or inspiration. Neither of these methods, 
however, may be dispensed with entirely. They repre- 
sent respectively conscious and unconscious thought, 



94 Living Ideals 

and they are as complimentary and necessary to each 
other and to true soul-unfoldment, as well as to the 
cause of truth, as are the processes of induction and 
deduction. 

Affirmations, denials, and local treatment of all 
kinds, are of permanent benefit only when they reach 
the cause of fear. Treatment of symptoms may re- 
move the outward appearance and evidence of dis- 
order, but as long as the cause remains, fresh symptoms 
will appear in new and unexpected directions. Nature 
always takes the line of least resistance. Energy re- 
pressed will seek a channel that offers minimum oppo- 
sition. Fear may be permanently dissipated only by 
renewing the consciousness. The renewed conscious- 
ness realizes the universal and unital Principle of 
Good. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CHEERFULNESS. 

Each of us requires a practical, working, everyday 
philosophy of life. But so anxious is each to acquire 
knowledge quickly, that usually he overlooks the fact 
that through experience alone can he realize and make 
his own the wisdom underlying appearances. 

One must live his philosophy in order to arrive at a 
knowledge of its real meaning. But before he lives a 
principle of life, he must have a clear understanding 
of what he is to manifest. Until he is able to formu- 
late his philosophy, he is in doubt as to what he really 
desires to do. Only after it is clearly presented to his 
mind and has passed the test of his reason, is he pre- 
pared to live it. 

Were one able to reduce to direct practice the ab- 
stract principles set forth in a rule of conduct such as 
the Golden Rule, there would be little difficulty in liv- 
ing a life of principle. Of itself, to "Love one an- 
other" is all sufficient. But a life time is required for 
love's interpretation and fulfilment. While the great- 

95 



96 Living Ideals 

est truths may be most simply expressed, they are sus- 
ceptible of infinite interpretations and applications. 

One's attitude toward the details of daily life deter- 
mines his happiness or his misery. His habitual atti- 
tude of mind measures what he shall make of life. 
What is required is to bring himself into harmony 
with his immediate surroundings and its momentary 
requirements. To do this, he must constantly enter- 
tain mental conceptions that relate him harmoniously 
with his environment. 

Each of us has some sort of a philosophy of life, 
some rule of conduct to which he endeavors to con- 
form. These differ in their degree of comparative 
wisdom or ignorance. It is not the amount of time 
devoted to it that determines which philosophy one 
shall indorse. 

To recognize the underlying unity of principle in 
diversity of appearance, requires some considerable de- 
gree of wisdom. With increasing wisdom, there comes 
a greater optimism and a wider consciousness of benefi- 
cence. No more philosophy is required in the promo- 
tion of happiness than in the promotion of misery. It 
is a question of degree or quality rather than quantity. 
It is the busiest man who is in greatest need of high 
spiritual conceptions. 



Cheerfulness 97 

The purpose in life is conscious harmony with en- 
vironment, and each devotes his life-time to this pur- 
pose. There is no question as to one having time to be 
happy. One derives more happiness from a concep- 
tion of good than from one of evil. Whether he think 
good or evil is a matter of suggestion and habit, and 
he can as readily cultivate the habit of seeing good as of 
recognizing evil. 

Happiness comes from living normally, truthfully, 
simply; from expressing one's highest perceptions. 
Cheerfulness is the manifestation of happiness or har- 
mony. It is true that every detail of the philosophy of 
life has its direct relation to happiness and cheerful- 
ness, but there are a few broad conceptions the accept- 
ance of which profoundly influences the harmonies of 
life, and determines what one shall make of it. 

It is of prime importance that one cultivate a faith 
in himself, without which he remains a mere sport of 
circumstances and environment. Not the credulous 
"faith" of ignorance, but the intelligent Faith of un- 
derstanding and knowledge. Not a confidence in a 
power unrelated to himself, but a trust in his own 
ability to place himself in harmony with, and thereby 
assume direction of, such powers as are inherent in 
himself. He must come to a consciousness of the in- 
herent grandeur and beauty of the Self. 



98 Living Ideals 

Through making himself positive to environment, 
one may mould it along the line of desire, and so con- 
trol destiny. Surroundings become passive when he 
knows that thought determines and dictates what shall 
come to him. When he knows his power, he can place 
compulsion on environment, and quickly attract to him 
what the requirements of his growth demand. 

One may understand the Self and its higher powers 
only from the point of view of Unity. From that 
standpoint he sees that all principles of Nature are 
inherently beneficent. As every manifestation of prin- 
ciple must partake of its essential qualities, all experi- 
ences are of advantage to him. He attracts what he 
requires. 

The Universe manifests kindness only, and this is 
clearly apparent when one meets its activities in a 
spirit of kindness. No person or thing may harm one 
except as his belief makes harm possible to him. He 
renders himself immune from injury when he knows 
that he is invulnerable. With this knowledge, fear de- 
parts from him and is replaced by Love that is all- 
inclusive. 

To develop happiness and manifest cheerfulness, 
one must live in and for the present — the Eternal Now. 
Each thought and act has an immediate effect upon 



Cheerfulness 99 

one, though it may not be discerned outwardly at 
once. One does not have to wait for a reward or pun- 
ishment, for the thought and act carry with them their 
own reward or punishment, and he is powerless to 
avoid what they justly and inevitably bring to him. 

Cause and effect 'are united by immutable principle 
and law. It is impossible to escape or even postpone 
the effect upon oneself of his thought and act. He 
makes his heaven and hell here and now, so that any 
future heaven and hell will be but a continuation and 
extension of the present one. He makes his own mis- 
ery and his own happiness, for these are but mental 
attitudes, the interpretations of the conditions he rep- 
resents. 

Misery here will not be compensated by happiness 
elsewhere. Do not encourage or even tolerate misery 
under such a delusion. Misery here is one's own 
making, and its only reward is more misery. He is 
postponing the greater happiness of himself and others. 
He does not deserve any pleasant reward for willingly 
or wilfully remaining ignorant. Nor is there any- 
thing particularly meritorious in neglect of opportuni- 
ties or failure to accomplish. 

Does this seem unkind? Would it be kind, indeed, 
to encourage or place a premium on misery or weak- 



ioo Living Ideals 

ness? The suggestion of a continuation of misery 
would certainly be cruel were one the slave of cir- 
cumstances, or were misery forcibly imposed upon 
him. But one's misery comes from within, and is en- 
tirely subject to his own control. The conscious- 
ness of this truth induces the assertion of mastery, 
and the rejection of all conceptions that tend toward 
inharmony. 

Nor will happiness here be offset by misery else- 
where. Do not fear to be happy! The place to be 
happy is here, and the time is now, and happiness here 
earns reward of happiness hereafter. One who is al- 
ways happy in the present can never be other than 
happy. Like produces like. Each reaps what he sows 
and receives what he gives — misery for misery and 
happiness for happiness. 

Do not postpone happiness! Do not cultivate a 
long face or a solemn mien. These will not lead to a 
paradise in the stars. One is not here to find heaven, 
but to make one. Heaven is the condition resultant 
upon conformity to law, to principle. 

One confers no happiness by being miserable, and 
no harm by being happy. He adds only to the happi- 
ness of others as he adds to his own, and only 
increases the misery of others as he continues miser- 



Cheerfulness 101 

able. There is no occasion but ignorance for post- 
poning happiness. If anything is to be postponed, 
let it be misery! 

When one's thoughts and actions are illumined by 
the conception that heaven is a condition of mind and 
the result of his own mental attitude, he manifests 
his love for others now. In general, if one hate an- 
other he is quite prone to say so ; if he love another he 
fears to let it be known. If he has unpleasant thoughts 
they flow out readily; if pleasant, they come reluc- 
tantly. He hesitates to do good, to be kind, to be lov- 
ing. He has no compunction about hating ; only about 
loving, or at least about manifesting love. He prefers 
to love others after they are dead, hating them while 
they live. As a rule, it may perhaps be said that one 
loves to manifest hate and hates to manifest love. 

To avoid discords one must reverse these methods. 
He must keep a song in his heart and sing it to others 
constantly. Use alone creates a wealth of love, and 
to be love-wealthy one must be lavish with it. His 
deeds of kindness are effective only in proportion to 
the love he puts into them. Let him impress his lov- 
ing thoughts on warm hearts rather than on cold 
marble! The time for kind thoughts and pleasant 
words is here and now. 



102 Living Ideals 

"Have good will 
To all that lives, letting unkindness die, 
And greed and wrath; so that your lives be made 
Like soft air passing by." 

"Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads 
Let love through goodness shine." 

Health is free to healthy minds, and in health there 
is life, liberty and good cheer. Be merry, cultivate 
sweet thoughts, radiate gentle smiles. There is crea- 
tive power latent in a ray of hope, and a spark of 
happiness. 

Happiness and its manifested cheerfulness are the 
result of activity. Mere passive thought is insufficient. 
Unless it has found expression, thought is incomplete. 
A thought is not owned until one has "parted" with 
it. If one would manifest cheerfulness he must cast 
it about him, so that it will envelop him. He will 
thus be at its center, where it is most intense and sat- 
isfying. The thought atmospheres with which one 
surrounds himself become the magnets of his des- 
tiny. 

Unless one act from his highest conceptions of life, 
he is losing time. Eternity lies before him, it is true, 
but because there is a tomorrow is no reason for in- 
activity today. Because there is a limitless reservoir 



Cheerfulness 103 

from which he may draw, is no excuse for refraining to 
take advantage of it now. Because he has a bound- 
less expanse of time within which to pass through the 
grades of life's schooling, does not warrant his re- 
maining indefinitely in the primary grades of experi- 
ence. 

In delaying and postponing, one is denying himself 
the benefits that are freely at his command. He is 
unnecessarily arresting his unfoldment and develop- 
ment. What he is now thinking and acting affects his 
present happiness. He determines his present rela- 
tion to all else by the thought and act of the moment, 
and this relation he regulates for himself. 

Habitual cheerfulness evidences the attitude of mind 
that recognizes harmony and manifests this recog- 
nition, for to each the world is but a mirror of the 
Self and its development in consciousness. As one 
realizes the inherent beauty and grandeur of the Self, 
he becomes the living manifestation of harmony and 
cheerfulness. 

When he knows that he is the arbiter of his own 
destiny, that nothing can possibly come to him ex- 
cept what is destined to benefit him, and that the 
"harm" he received is only his ignorant interpretation 
of appearances, he cheerfully assumes the responsibil- 



104 Living Ideals 

ities of life and sees no occasion for ill-will toward 
others. He no longer even blames himself, for he is 
sure to receive the exact reward or punishment his 
thoughts and acts call for, and there is no occasion 
either for self-laudation or self-depreciation. 

No one may really harm another. But one's con- 
sciousness of the motive, the intent and the seeming 
result of thoughts and acts, determine their influ- 
ence upon him. He knows life only as his conscious- 
ness interprets it. With high motive, kind intent, and 
thought and act proceeding from lofty conceptions, 
one becomes conscious of peace and poise, both men- 
tally and physically. 

Each determines what his consciousness shall be. 
He has the choice of happiness or misery, as he may 
elect. It depends upon his views of life, and the rela- 
tion in which he places himself with his surroundings 
and environment. 

When one looks for love and harmony only, he sees' 
and knows nothing else. He is always open to greater 
understanding and higher realization, and he neces- 
sarily interprets from the plane of his development. 
There is no absolute finality, but his interpretation 
may secure him the harmony that fully satisfies the 
conditions he has reached, and the plane of his func- 
tioning. 



Cheerfulness 105 

No involved philosophy of life is essential to happi- 
ness. What one requires most is the ability to inter- 
pret and express vitally a few simple conceptions of life, 
the truth of which is self-evident. Living these 
truths will more quickly lead him to greater wisdom 
and understanding than any mere intellectual attain- 
ments. He must learn more or less slowly through 
experience and self-expression. Mere abstract learn- 
ing does not suffice. 

If one would be cheerful he must recognize a cheer- 
ful Universe about him, and radiate that conscious- 
ness. He must recognize it Here and Now, and as 
it more clearly appeals to him he will come to a 
fuller realization of it. He has the power to manifest 
all the beauty there is, and it is only by living lofty 
conceptions that he gradually attains greater beauty 
of character. It is through the consciousness of soul 
growth that one reaches the harmony of life that 
radiates cheerfulness. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE SECRET OF SYMPATHY. 

Each Soul is destined to develop or unfold contin- 
ually into greater consciousness of the attributes of 
Universal Spirit. Each individual is a point of focali- 
zation or expression of the Universal. Immanent and 
innate in each part therefore are the qualities of the 
Whole. 

Existence and manifestation are essential to soul- 
unfoldment. That they subserve no purpose is incon- 
ceivable. To admit lack of purpose or necessity, even 
in the slightest detail of the Universe, contravenes all 
conception of Unity, and assumes a chaos rather than 
a Cosmos. While one may not be able to connect 
cause and effect, never is he justified in concluding 
that such connection is lacking. 

Each detail of the Universe is necessary, and sub- 
serves a particular and special purpose. Matter and 
energy are inseparable, inner and outer are dependent, 
Soul and body are one. Soul unfoldment indicates 
a broadening consciousness, resulting from the realiza- 

106 



The Secret of Sympathy 107 

tion of wisdom. Wisdom is the essence of experi- 
ence. 

There is a principle and a spiritual center to all ex- 
perience and an abstract truth in all concrete manifes- 
tation. While truth is unchangeable, manifestations 
change ever. Only through the fleeting may the eter- 
nal be discerned. It is the relative that enables the 
finite mind to cognize the Infinite, the Universal. 

Consciousness unfolds as the result of its interpre- 
tation of experience and consequent extraction of wis- 
dom. Without experience, consciousness would have 
nothing to interpret or from which to absorb wis- 
dom. Consciousness interprets what the senses re- 
port to it, but without environment nothing would 
be reported. The outer world is as necessary as the 
inner; not only as necessary but, fundamentally, the 
two are one and inseparable. 

As the Soul unfolds, it comes into conscious har- 
mony with manifestations of greater number and va- 
riety, and with correspondingly broader spiritual en- 
vironment. As conscious harmony constitutes love, 
that which the Soul receives as wisdom is given out 
as love. Love is the heart of all truth, and he who 
assimilates the most truth distills the most love. Thus 
it is that wisdom and love are intimately related. 



108 Living Ideals 

One is in sympathy only with what he has experi- 
enced, for this is all that he represents. Each indi- 
vidual is representative only of the experiences he 
has met, and the wisdom he has absorbed from them. 
He is inclusive of all unfoldment less than his own 
present development. He is able to understand and 
appreciate only the motives, the meanings and the in- 
fluences that correspond to all he has passed through 
and assimilated, and he sympathizes with others only 
as they encounter the difficulties and obstacles that 
he has previously overcome. 

Without experience, sympathy with others would 
be impossible. One can love only that with which he 
is in harmony, and he vibrates in harmony only with 
that which is duplicated in himself. He cannot be at 
one with what is foreign to him, nor can he vibrate in 
sympathy with what is not in sympathy with him. 
There is sympathy between individuals only to the de- 
gree to which they have met and mastered conditions 
and unfolded qualities of consciousness in common. 

Unconsciously the Universe is a complete harmony. 
Unconsciously all harmonies are inherent in each in- 
dividual. But each must unfold gradually to a con- 
sciousness of these inherent harmonies. Love is the 
essence of such consciousness and it is expressed ac- 



The Secret of Sympathy 109 

tively by way of sympathy. The consciousness of love 
and the expression of it by way of sympathy open to 
each individual the avenues leading to further inclu- 
siveness and higher wisdom. 

To possess universal wisdom, one must love uni- 
versally, his sympathy must be boundless, he must rec- 
ognize within the Self that which actuates the mur- 
derer, the robber, the thief. He must know that their 
conditions and environments have been his. Univer- 
sal love is possible to universal experience only. To 
be all-inclusive, necessarily he must be "bad" and 
good, low and high, sinner and saint. 

In the course of man's evolutionary development, 
there were times when murder, theft and the like were 
meritorious and commendable. One does not have to 
be a thief at the time, to sympathize with a thief. 
But, at some time, he must have nourished similar 
thoughts and manifested them. And the wisdom ab- 
sorbed from an experience forever remains a part of 
him and enables him later on to respond to its counter- 
part in others. 

One can sympathize with what he has passed 
through — brute life, animal life, savage life, crime, 
lawlessness. To the degree that their wisdom is ab- 
sorbed, is he the better for having passed through each 



no Living Ideals 

of these thought-conditions and physical manifesta- 
tions. But he can have no sympathy with, and there- 
fore condemns, that which he has not yet experienced, 
or having experienced, the wisdom of which he has not 
yet absorbed or to which he has not yet unfolded. 

The study of embryology and anatomy demon^ 
strates that the physical body retains the essence of all 
its ancestral forms or — as they may be termed — its 
physical experiences. And the thought-form of which 
the physical is the manifestation similarly retains the 
essence of all its ancestral thought-experiences. The 
quart measure includes the pint, the mountain top in- 
cludes the base, and in the sun is included the electric 
light. 

If the intenser harmonies and higher development 
recognized only what responded to them fully, their 
sympathies would be so narrowed that there would 
be an utter lack of harmony between those unequally 
developed. Interchange would be confined to those 
exactly alike, and one would be unable to supply to 
another that which the other lacked. There would be 
no interdependence or mutuality, and love and sym- 
pathy would be without purpose or advantage. 

As one progresses he stores away; he includes, he 
does not eliminate essence or wisdom. Form alone 



The Secret of Sympathy in 

is changed or eliminated. While it is true that his 
consciousness is dominated by the highest harmonies 
to which he has unfolded, it is equally true that he 
forever includes the lower intensities to which he has 
[ responded during the course of his unfoldment. He 
summons the subconscious to the conscious realm, and 
with the new and deeper understanding and through 
the realization and application of Life's principles and 
laws, the old subconscious ideas and conceptions are re- 
newed and rejuvenated. When his present con- 
scious wisdom is superseded by the subconsciousness 
which is inclusive of its essence, its permanent con- 
scious attendance is no longer necessary. It is stored 
away, but is ready to be called into activity when- 
ever its response is required. 

The higher harmonies are intensified through the 
constant quickening of the lower. Thereby a deepei 
realization is reached, a broader sympathy aroused and 
a greater intensity of love attained. Unless the higher 
harmonies included the lower, one could not love or 
sympathize with the latter. As it is, the lower and 
higher, the less and more developed, the smaller and 
greater unfoldment, mutually are beneficial and es- 
sential. The higher lifts the lower and the lower sus- 
tains the higher. There is no summit without its 
base. 



ii2 Living Ideals 

The wise are those whose love is most universal. An 
unbounded love and an all-inclusive sympathy are the 
distinguishing traits of all Saviors and Christs. The 
conception of Unity is vitalized by these qualities, and 
they inculcate a Religion of Humanity. Love of God 
and Love of Man are One. They are as inseparable 
as God and Man. 

The experiences his development demands come 
constantly to each individual. They offer opportuni- 
ties for the absorption of the wisdom they represent 
and that he requires. This wisdom is appropriated 
and assimilated in proportion as he loves his experi- 
ences, and persuades them to disclose their secret 
love for him. One uses his wisdom to the best ad- 
vantage as he expresses the higher love it represents 
and the wider sympathy it prompts. Wisdom ex- 
pressed through love and sympathy promotes receptiv- 
ity to higher wisdom, and this facilitates its further 
development. Love and Wisdom are the positive 
and negative poles of Being, and whatever divides 
them, serves equally to unite them and to demonstrate 
their essential inseparability. 

To be wise, one must love ; to be wiser, he must love 
more; to be wisest, he must love most. That is to 
say, to be wise one must be in conscious harmony 



The Secret of Sympathy 113 

with his environment, his fellow beings and his ex- 
periences, and this love must be evidenced in sym- 
pathetic thoughts and actions. The love that is syn- 
onymous with wisdom always seeks expression, and 
thus invites impression; always gives, and therefore 
cannot fail to receive; always sows, and of necessity 
reaps. It is the deeper love that is promoted by the 
world of experience and manifestation — a practical 
and serviceable love, and one that encircles all hu- 
manity. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AN INCLUSIVE T0LERATI0N o 

The fulfilment of inherent beneficence in the Prin- 
ciple of Life demonstrates the immanence of Universal 
Love. This love is not confined to emotion or pas- 
sion. It is the expression rather of toleration, equal- 
ity, mutuality, justice. The extent of one's conscious 
harmonious relation or correspondence with his en- 
vironment measures the degree of his conscious love. 

As one increases his realization of Oneness with 
all, he expresses and manifests more love. He finds an 
increasing agreement between himself and all others. 
Seeming inconsistencies are dispelled, apparent dis- 
cords disappear, and inharmonies are converted into 
harmonies. As love thus develops in him he becomes 
broader in his conceptions and more tolerant in his 
life. 

The ultimate roots of toleration, of equality, of jus- 
tice, and of love are identical. These are all contrast- 
ing degrees of harmony, as applied to different con- 
ditions and circumstances. While this does not 

114 



An Inclusive Toleration 115 

represent the popular conception of the derivation of 
love, it is the necessary logical deduction from a con- 
ception of Universal Unity and Beneficence. 

While one lives on a distinctly physical plane he 
cannot comprehend a community of interests. The 
physical or material manifestations seem to be hope- 
lessly at variance with this idea. Only as the intel- 
lectual and higher mental faculties develop and 
respond to the appeal can one come to see through di- 
versity of appearance to the inherent and underlying 
Unity. 

It must be that whatever exists at any particular 
time is a certain quantity. But one's interpretation of 
it depends entirely upon himself. As far as one's un- 
derstanding and consciousness are concerned, all things 
are relative to his point of view and his means of 
vision at the time. 

The attributes one ascribes to his surroundings and 
environment constitute his individual interpretation 
of what appeals to his consciousness. For example, 
what he calls sound and color are sensations. They 
are not properties of the vibrations that he interprets. 
They are the sensations to which their reception gives 
rise. 

The vibrations which appeal to one as sound or 



n6 Living Ideals 

color, and the exact sound or color they represent, 
depend upon the individual instrument receiving them. 
No two persons are receptive to the same exact range 
of vibrations, nor are their various interpretations of 
the same vibrations identical. 

One may hear only such waves of energy as are in 
vibratory sympathy with the strings of his auditory 
nerves. Only such waves as move in correspondence 
with the retinal elements of his eye may he interpret 
as color. At a given point of greater or lesser inten- 
sity the vibrations cease to appeal to him as sound or 
light. Yet the essential difference between the vibra- 
tions that may be recognized as sound or light, and 
those immediately above or below them, is their greater 
or lesser intensity of motion. A particular range of 
vibrations appeals to one as sound and another range 
as light, while still other ranges may not provoke any 
sensation to which he can consciously relate them. 

Each sees and hears differently and no person has 
perfect sight or hearing. It is the same with the 
senses of touch, taste and smell. Each is differently 
appealed to by the same or similar impressions. All 
have different tastes, sensations and feelings. Each 
has passed through experiences peculiar to himself, 
and each manifests a thought-form that is a composite 
of all his past thinking. 



An Inclusive Toleration 117 

From this viewpoint one readily appreciates the 
fact that he must have individual taste, hearing and 
sight. Although he may prefer those who are some- 
what akin to him in these matters, yet he is reason- 
ably tolerant of others who differ from him. It is 
evident to him that those who are near-sighted may 
not see exactly as do those who are far-sighted, nor 
may those who are color-blind visually recognize what 
is seen by the cultivated eye of the artist. Those who 
are partly deaf do not appreciate sound in the same 
way as those whose auditory sense is in normal con- 
dition. Aside, too, from these extreme conditions, there 
are minor differences pertaining to all the senses and 
feelings. 

As it is with the five physical senses, so it is with 
all our faculties and functions. We are individuals, 
and each one of us lives in a different universe. The 
Universe is defined, limited and circumscribed to each 
by his consciousness, and each registers and repre- 
sents a different development. As with the physical 
senses, so is it with the mental faculties. Each occu- 
pies a different mental universe, and the individual 
physical manifestations are its correspondences. 

Since in the nature of things it is inevitable that we 
must be different both physically and mentally, the 



n8 Living Ideals 

sooner we recognize that fact and live accordingly, the 
better it will be for all of us. The next step is to learn 
that these incidental differences are necessary for the 
benefit of all, and that they offer the only means where- 
by one may develop and progress. One grows only 
through the appropriation and absorption of what he 
lacks in consciousness. 

Delving still deeper, it becomes apparent that un- 
derlying these incidental differences is a spiritual 
Unity, expressive of all that is fundamental and basic. 
Spiritually we are One. But Unity of Principle is 
ever manifested through diversity of appearance. As 
this diversity is the expression of the activity of Uni- 
versal Beneficence, without which there could be no 
progress, there is every reason why one should be tol- 
erant or friendly toward its every manifestation. 

It is through the operation of the Love Principle— 
the Principle of Attraction — that things are brought 
together. Whatever reaches one in the way of ex- 
perience or environment has come to him as the re- 
sult of mutual attraction. As the Principle of Attrac- 
tion is always beneficent in its operation, this mutual 
attraction is the expression of love, and the conjunction 
is designed to benefit him. Whatever forms part of 
his experience or environment may be converted to his 



An Inclusive Toleration 119 

advantage, and has been attracted to him in order that 
he may use it to that end. 

How may one make use of the material thus put 
into his hands? How is he to use it in adding to his 
soul growth and building a character? By receiving 
it in the spirit in which it is brought to him. By 
recognizing its friendly intent and purpose. By recip- 
rocating its kindly greeting. By being tolerant and 
loving. 

The Universe is not chance and haphazard. Things 
do not occur from pure ignorance and lack of pur- 
pose. The Universe Is, and its manifestations are 
those of intelligence, purpose, principle and love. 
Through immutable operation of law, whatever is 
manifest has resulted from what formerly was in- 
visible or unmanifest. The manifestations of the 
past, present and future alike represent the necessary 
results of good and sufficient causes. 

Every religion, philosophv or school of thought that 
has ever existed, came into manifestation because it 
was required. There was a demand for it. When the 
demand ceased the manifestation of it was translated 
or merged into the new or substituted demand. Every 
church or school appeals to those whose growth lies 
within the confines of its limitations. Whenever there 



120 Living Ideals 

is a seeming danger of permanent limitation, intoler- 
ance and persecution always lead to the breaking of 
the shackles and an escape into comparative free- 
dom. 

The more comprehensive the truth the greater its 
manifestation of freedom, of toleration, of justice, 
and of love. To the degree that these are repressed 
there is an absence of truth. Truth includes an in- 
finitude of contrasts and gradations. To the extent 
that they include more or less of these contrasts, all 
statements of truth are expressions of a larger or 
smaller degree of truth. The least amount of truth 
is conveyed when one extreme only is recognized. The 
difference between truth and "falsity" is in the degree 
of truth each represents. That is most "false" which 
manifests the least truth and ignores the most. 

In order either to avoid or dispel the false, it is 
both inexpedient and unnecessary to be intolerant. 
As health is renewed through the cultivation of more 
health in consciousness, and darkness is dispelled by 
the addition of more light, so is the false converted 
into the truth. Intolerance denotes the recognition 
of one extreme only, and one intensifies intolerance 
when he adds to it more intolerance. 

The highest conception of truth recognizes the good 



An Inclusive Toleration 121 

in all things and in all manifestations. While every- 
thing is inherently good in itself, some things are re- 
lated more harmoniously than are others. One's search 
is always for "the right thing in the right place," the 
ideal, the idea and the manifestation which will re- 
veal to him a higher understanding of inherent good 
than he has yet assimilated. But one receives and 
appropriates these only as he is prepared for them, and 
as his development has rendered him receptive to 
them. All things are good, but what are beyond one's 
reach are not best for him until he may understand and 
appreciate them. This is why they are beyond his 
reach. 

The present age had progressed so far along dis- 
tinctly material lines at the expense of the spiritual 
that it evinced but slight consciousness of the higher 
truths. As a result, manifestations of individual and 
social disease, inharmony and discord, became more or 
less general. Those who keenly recognized these con- 
ditions set about inculcating a philosophy of life calcu- 
lated to neutralize excessive materialism, through the 
introduction of higher spiritual conceptions. 

Under such conditions the natural tendency was to 
administer heroic treatment. The earlier spiritual 
teachers of the present age were extremists, and neces- 



122 Living Ideals 

sarily so. Only as such could they make any impres- 
sion, or stem the tide of materialism. Only enthusiasts 
were willing to encounter the abuse and misunder- 
standing that must inevitably be leveled at them and 
their teaching. To the extent that the tide of ex- 
treme materialism has been turned, are such teaching 
and work inapplicable and unnecessary. 

Later, as new conditions and demands were reached, 
and different degrees of development had to be met, 
other teachers appeared. So it is with each advance. 
The growing need is met by thinkers and teachers far- 
ther and farther removed from the extremist type. 
But as more progressive schools arise each of the less 
progressive are also gaining adherents, and all are 
drawing ultimately from the great body of society, the 
mass of which have not yet even been reached. 

As a result, at present there are numerous degrees 
of development in the spiritual and religious Move- 
ment of the present age, each of which is appealed to 
from different points of view and by varying modes 
of expression. This Movement has differently affected 
the various individuals influenced by it. Each has ab- 
sorbed particular conceptions, and each has assimilated 
his new acquisitions from the point of view of the body 
of knowledge he formerly possessed. 



An Inclusive Toleration 123 

Under such conditions is it possible that any single 
form of expression appeal equally to all of the fol- 
lowers of this great religious Movement? Most cer- 
tainly not. So we have various designations, titles and 
descriptions of spiritual teachers and healers, as well 
as Homes, Brotherhoods, Sisterhoods, cults, colonies, 
clubs, systems, associations, "centers" and even fed- 
erations, besides numerous individuals each represent- 
ing a form of expression peculiar to it or to himself. 

Is any one individual, or school, or system to be 
condemned? Certainly not, if Life is a Unit. If any 
did not meet a demand or supply a need it would not 
have a following. Any teaching is what is tempo- 
rarily required by those who desire and seek it. Under 
such conditions, if it is not for them they can only be 
sure of it through investigating and understanding it. 

Some teachers and schools in the new spiritual 
movement lay equal stress on the physical, the mental 
and spiritual, yet recognizing that the spiritual is the 
source and cause of all life. Others are inclined to 
overlook the mental, and others still are disposed to dis- 
regard the physical. Even if one may consider that 
a particular school expresses more truth than another, 
he cannot determine their relative value for another 
individual, unless he knows the exact requirement to 
be met. 



124 Living Ideals 

No one is perfect. Each lacks something. Those 
who develop physically at the expense of the mental, 
lack the compensating mental training. Some develop 
mentally at the expense of the physical. One lacks 
this and another that, and each requires that which he 
lacks. The teacher who enables one to supply his 
present deficiency is the one he requires first. But he 
is not likely to turn to any teaching — no matter what 
its inherent truth — which promises to supply only what 
he already possesses. 

After extreme necessities have been met, the inevi- 
table tendency is toward a philosophy that recognizes 
the mental and physical as one and inseparable, that 
divorces itself from authority and tradition, that sepa- 
rates itself from dogma, and that inculcates love. Such 
philosophy has no condemnation, avoids extremes, and 
its practice manifests in universal toleration and love. 

This position is not monopolized by the ideas or con- 
ceptions of one or more particular individuals; nor is 
the truth contained in, limited to, or confined by any 
one form of expression. It represents a philosophy of 
the broadest freedom, untrammeled by limitations. 
Whatever the particular designation, it may cover the 
same breadth of view and admit of as much truth as 
any other. 



An Inclusive Toleration 125 

As one confines himself to external authority or to 
the wisdom (or ignorance) of individual persons, 
books, or forms of expression, he limits his vision and 
keeps the truth hidden. The immutable principles of 
Nature permit one to see the good in all, consistently 
to belong to all creeds, sects and philosophies, and to 
absorb the wisdom that each voices and represents. 

The nearer one approaches this mountain-height of 
freedom and toleration, the fewer individuals he en- 
counters. The great mass of humanity is steeped in 
superstition and slavery, so that every further ad- 
vance toward freedom requires tests which fewer and 
fewer are prepared to meet. The mass of enslaved 
humanity forms the base of the mountain, and the few 
individual Souls who have attained to freedom consti- 
tute the summit. 

And yet those who represent the higher portions of 
the mountain where there is a broader outlook, have 
every reason to be tolerant toward the lower levels. 
The lower furnishes the higher their support, and all 
are interdependent and inseparable. If one remem- 
bers that it is only through the elevation of the lower 
levels that the higher may be elevated still further, and 
that the higher must always have the lower upon which 
to rest, he will recognize the equal necessity for all 
degrees of development, 



126 Living Ideals 

When one knows that growth may be secured only 
through the appropriation of what he lacks and 
through contact with others who differ from him, he 
will recognize the advantage to each and all of the 
existence of infinite contrasts. Recognizing the benefi- 
cent necessity of endless variety, he will develop a 
consciousness of mutuality and interdependence of all 
things that will be expressed by the broadest and most 
comprehensive toleration in thought and conduct. Tol- 
eration will then lose its negative significance and be 
converted into its positive aspect of Love. 



\ 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE ATTAINMENT OF FREEDOM. 

An ideal is intended for realization. It is meant to 
be manifested. It is to be lived. However exalted its 
spiritual mountain peak, the physical serves as its base. 
It should be related consciously to every-day mental 
and physical living, which it may safely guide and 
direct. One's ideals cannot extend too far into the 
clouds provided he keeps his feet firmly planted on 
earth. 

Ideals are actualized and realized in life through liv- 
ing in conformity to their requirements. With one's 
mental impression of a broader conception of life, the 
physical organism is placed under the compulsion of 
expressing it. Compliance may be delayed, but cannot 
be evaded entirely. 

Life is a Unit. The constant tendency of spiritual, 
mental and physical activities is toward their conscious 
conformity and unity. The realization of one's ideals 
indicates the adjustment of the physical to the mental, 
and the spiritual unfoldment consequent upon their re- 

127 



128 Living Ideals 

suiting conscious Unity. One cannot be conscious of 
harmony while inseparable activities are following the 
dictates of conflicting standards. 

Living ideals are those which have been realized 
through manifestation. Livingness is conferred upon 
them sooner or later, according to the alacrity and 
willingness with which one responds to the demand for 
expression of his highest conceptions. Not only are 
mental activities called upon continually to respond to 
one's spiritual unfoldment, but physical manifestations 
are likewise required in correspondence with his men- 
tal development. This is the process whereby the 
mental and physical gradually become spiritualized. 

One should respond at once to the demand for man- 
ifestation of his highest conceptions. The demand 
comes only as opportunity arises. This habit of imme- 
diate response cannot be formed too soon, nor can its 
value be overestimated. In no other way can one "Do 
the right thing at the right time!' DO IT NOW! 
Whatever one does, necessarily he does it Now, but if 
he temporize, delay, postpone, not only will the inner 
guide finally fail him entirely, but he will be unable to 
"do the right thing" at any time, for the right time 
for doing it will always have passed. 

While life continues to manifest, necessarily one 



The Attainment of Freedom 129 

must express, and each and every act must be per- 
formed, Now. But mere expression or manifestation is 
of slight developmental power. Being "busy" is unim- 
portant in itself. At each and every moment a choice 
is offered between contrasting mental attitudes and 
physical activities. Some attitude must be assumed 
and some activity manifested. Which shall it be ? 

The inner spiritual prompting may be relied upon 
for guidance. But unless its solicitations are responded 
to promptly, the habit of ignoring them will be formed, 
and one will follow the dimly illumined pathway of 
his crude intellectual interpretation of appearance. The 
intellect can be depended upon for safe guidance only 
after it has become spiritually mellowed. 

One is judged by his fidelity to the light he discerns, 
but he is his own judge. The constant tendency is for 
his ancient mental and physical furnishings to average 
up to his modern acquisitions. When a curtain is 
thrust aside revealing a brighter light of truth, he rec- 
ognizes how antiquated are some of his most cherished 
possessions. Shall he shut out the light or refurnish 
his mental apartments? 

Which shall it be? When the alternative is pre- 
sented one must decide whether to let the light in or to 
exclude it. Shall he express his higher conceptions or 



130 Living Ideals 

his lower? Shall he be an animal or a man, an auto- 
maton or an Individual? In making his choice, he 
measures its return in terms of discord or harmony 
and forms the habits of life which crystallize into 
destiny. 

What shall one do Now? Follow the guidance of 
the spirit, and physically act the thoughts which radiate 
from the light of his highest ideals. There is all the 
difference possible between averaging one's ideals 
down to his manifestations, and averaging these up to 
his ideals. The former involves pain and penalty, the 
latter pleasure and reward. 

One attains freedom through conscious liberation of 
the truth within him. One is conscious of outward 
freedom as a result of expressing it, or pressing it out 
of himself through living or enacting the truth. It is 
the consciousness of truth that frees, and one's freedom 
is measured by the soul-unfoldment which ensues upon 
the conscious harmonious vibration of the physical and 
mental organisms at their higher levels of attainment. 

True freedom is for those only who are ready and 
willing to be free by paying its price. Mere conform- 
ity to established habits of thought and traditions of 
action do not confer freedom. One must express him- 
self habitually at his best if he would be free. He must 



The Attainment of Freedom 131 

be individual, unique. He is free when he has subor- 
dinated immaturity to maturity, crudity to refinement, 
evil to good. He is free from the domination of the 
developed by the undeveloped, of the mental by the 
physical, of the human by the animal. He has ceased 
to fetter himself and to bar his own progress, and has 
thus escaped from the only bondage there is. 

Unless one free himself, he must remain enslaved. 
There is no other freedom. One manifests the truth 
through Living Ideals, and he alone can live his own 
ideals. Through the simple expedient of being true 
at all times to the light within him, he absorbs and 
radiates truth of ever increasing potency and splendor. 
He is true equally to himself and others, while his 
integrity to exalted purpose and his devotion to har- 
monious methods denote his Attainment of Freedom. 



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